Best Served Cold
by JaceDLark
Summary: WARNING - Spoilers for episode 2x06. In an act of revenge for stealing Kurt's first kiss, Kurt outs Karofsky to the school. Will Dave take it or take him on? Angstyish yet humourish story with eventual Kurtofsky. AU. OOC.
1. Misery

Heya - I watched the latest Glee yesterday and just couldn't help but love the chemistry between Kurt & Dave so I thought I'd try my hand at a little Gleek love!

DISCLAIMER - I do not own Glee or any of the songs that may be contained within. If I did I would not be writing fanfic but would be filthy rich and traveling the world. Who am I kidding, even if I was rich I'd probably still write fanfic anyway!

Hope you enjoy. If you do, leave a review (go my lame rhyming!). If you don't, don't waste your time and mine by leaving a flame. It's summer here in Australia and it's already warm enough. Cheers. Jace.

* * *

**Best Served Cold**

**_Misery_**

The first thing Dave Karofsky met with at McKinley High was a dark purple slushie to the face. It was in that precise moment as he wiped the residue from his surprised face that he realised his darkest secret was a secret no more. He tried not to blink as the freezing cold beverage slid lazily down his head and onto his most prized possession - his red McKinley High blazer. His eyes flew to Azimio's face but the jock's laughing wasn't directed at someone else as he'd hoped but was firmly fixed on him. His best friend of over ten years had just slushied him. He had never felt so betrayed.

Before Dave could come up with any kind of retort or expletive, Azimio spoke up in a brutally loud voice that carried over half the state of Ohio. "I'd never figured you for a faggot but I suppose it had to be more than just bad luck that you'd never hooked up with a Cheerio," the dark skinned man sneered as the other footballers looked on with undisguised glee. That was when the whispers became audible in the hush that was a footballer being slushied by his own team mates. No doubt the news was about to go viral if it hadn't already.

"Yeah," screeched a random footballer. "I suppose the only reason that you're on the hockey team is because there's no figure skating team for you to join, homo." The comment has followed by a few high fives and a lot of snickering.

It took a lot of self restraint for Dave to keep his cool. He started to sing the national anthem in his head in an attempt to block it all out but the jeers grew in volume and vulgarity and it was only because Sue Sylvester was storming their way that they stopped, scattering from the tight pack they formed. Is this how everyone else felt whenever he'd bullied them? Is this how Kurt felt? No wonder the elfin-like singer avoided him like the plague. No wonder he did not reciprocate his feelings when he'd hungrily assaulted the boy in the locker room just two days ago.

Dave took the opportunity to escape whilst he still could. If there was one thing Coach Sylvester was good at (besides being a cruel heartless bitch) it was distracting everyone as she crazily barked expletives at the Asian glee girl who just happened to be nearby. "Get out of my way, Squinty, and for the love of Joan Rivers, stop dressing like Elizabeth Bennet - Undead Vampiress of the Cretaceous period and put on some goddam respectable clothes before the residents of the hobo community that beg uselessly at my door each night for scraps of food finally decide that your flesh would be just as good as the chicken luksa your brethren smother with wasabi sauce for dinner. MOVE." Tina high-tailed it out of there as fast as Dave did despite the fact that most of what Sue had said made very little sense.

Dave's destination was obvious. He stormed to the boys toilets and barged through the door, causing a kid to jump with fright and make a hasty retreat. After washing his face, the young man vigorously scrubbed at his hair under the tap, trying to wash out as much of the sticky substance as he could. When he was halfway through his task he heard the door open and then a startled gasp over the sound of the running water. Without letting the unknown boy interrupt his task, Dave finished the job on his hair before shutting off the tap and glancing up in the mirror to spot none other than Kurt Hummel. The Fairy Queen herself.

Dave turned around and the two locked eyes in an intense staring match before he broke the silence between them. "Well I hope you're fucking happy, homo. You've completely ruined my life." His sentence petered out toward the end as his oesophagus tried to choke him.

A small frown crinkled briefly on Kurt's brow before he flicked his head a little and it was gone, his haughty tone sharp enough to cut like glass. "Like you're one to talk, since it is abundantly clear that you have homosexual tendencies too." He started to grin like a maniac. "I felt it was only fair to let the straight players on the team know that you're gayer than an all male revue of Gypsy."

"W-why?" Karofsky asked in a plaintive voice. "Why couldn't you just keep it to your goddam self?" The sound of his voice betrayed how torn up he was feeling. A burning sensation behind his eyes told him that he'd soon be a crying mess. Only two things were stopping them from flowing freely down his face. The first was that he actually wanted to know why Kurt sold him out, even if the kid had every right to. The second was that he'd rather die of rat poison than let the guy he really liked see his tears fall like a never ending Niagara Falls in a bathroom of all places. Any self-respecting jock would feel exactly the same.

Kurt's nose raised itself even higher in the air and he disdainfully replied, "you brought this upon yourself. I gave you a chance to admit your orientation when I brought Blaine to the school to talk to you but what did you do? You threatened him, threatened me and denied what happened only two days ago when you kissed me. You forced my hand."

Anger flared up in Dave's body sending waves of fury throughout him. His face contorted with rage as it often did but there were no lockers nearby to destroy with a few well placed hits. Instead, his finger was angrily pointing in time with his words at Kurt's chest. "I forced nothing. It was my secret, my place to tell and instead of letting me sort it out for myself, you blabbed it to Azimio. AZIMIO! The only friend I've had since the first grade."

Kurt bristled up at Dave's angry tone. "Well, if you hadn't been such an asshole to me for the last few years, I might have felt like keeping your little crisis quiet but you've been pushing me around since the fifth grade. Like telling everyone how pathetic I am and how I'm a whore, a slut, a fairy, a fag, a homo, a gaybo, a pansy and a fucking disturbed freak. Forgive me if I find your situation both refreshing and hilarious because the ridicule and pain is something you completely deserve."

Dave Karofsky was completely floored by the countertenor although he wasn't really surprised that he was furious. He'd always figured that Kurt would be too moral and proud to gossip about his orientation but clearly he had underestimated the petite boy. "I see," noted Dave although it was clear by his tone that he couldn't really say anything else. He turned on the spot, causing Kurt to jump back in surprise which was no doubt a honed response to Dave's constant harassment, and moved as quickly as he could to one of the stalls. He pushed the door open, entered the stall and locked the door behind him. His back met the horribly painted green door with a loud thud as he slid to the floor, tears spilling unchecked from his eyes.

On the other side of the room, Kurt looked at the closed door in surprise before turning back to look in the mirror. His eyes were still widened in shock. He'd never really expected to see just how much this would affect Karofsky. In all honesty, he hadn't even thought through what would happen if he 'accidentally' outed the football and hockey player but he was just so angry. That Neanderthal had stolen his first kiss, one he secretly hoped for a few short days would belong to Blaine, and had turned something that should have been perfect into a pile of shit. No, the ham huck deserved this. His expression cleared in the mirror and after fiddling a little with his hair, Kurt sauntered out of the bathroom whilst ignoring the snuffling noises from behind the closed door.

Dave stayed in the bathroom and blubbered all the way through his geometry and english classes and only pulled himself together to make his way to the cafeteria for lunch. This proved to be a monumental mistake. After collecting his tray from the lunch ladies (where he endured quite a few comments about his newfound sexuality - none of which were nice) he realised that he had nowhere to sit to eat. Obviously he was no longer welcome at Azimio's table and he'd never really been friends with anyone else. In fact nearly every table had at least someone he had bullied sitting at it. Where could he go?

In the end, he decided to sit outside on the cement stairs and eat away from the stifling atmosphere of the cafeteria. Unfortunately, he needn't have bothered because after only four steps towards the double doors, he was rammed over by one of the footballers, his tray coming loose and his lunch ended up all over him. Laughter bounced around the room as he embarrassedly picked himself up off the floor.

Dave "The Fury" Karofsky, feared footballer of the recently improving McKinley High team was now the laughing stock of the school. He left after that and wandered aimlessly about the school and found himself in the empty auditorium (which was thankfully clear of the silver and purple crap that came out of Sue's dual confetti cannons two days ago). After deciding that school was a lost cause for the day, he pulled open his backpack and snagged his Ipod from the inside. After placing the buds in his ears he let his mind drift away with the music.

Song after song later and it was almost home time. There was still four minutes left and the catchy introduction of Maroon 5's song Misery began to play. With a heavy sigh, Dave quietly sang along with it only now realising how much the lyrics seemed to apply to him. He was in complete misery.

_So scared of breaking it but you won't let it bend and I wrote two hundred letters I won't ever send.  
Sometimes these cuts are so much deeper than they seem. You'd rather cover up, I'd rather let them be.  
So let me be and I'll set you free._

_I am in misery, there ain't nobody who can comfort me.  
Why won't you answer me. The silence is slowly killing me.  
Girl, you really got me bad, you really got me bad. I'm gonna get you back, gonna get you back._

_You say your faith is shaken, you may be mistaken. You keep me wide awake and waiting for the sun.  
I'm desperate and confused so far away from you. I'm getting there, I don't care where I have to go._

_Why do you do what you do to me, yeah? Why won't you answer me, answer me, yeah?  
Why do you do what you do to me, yeah? Why won't you answer me, answer me, yeah?_

_I am in misery, there ain't nobody who can comfort me.  
Why won't you answer me. The silence is slowly killing me._

_Girl, you really got me bad, you really got me bad. I'm gonna get you back, gonna get you back.  
Girl, you really got me bad, you really got me bad. I'm gonna get you back, gonna get you back._

It was clear in Dave's mind that Kurt was the girl in the song. Sometimes the jock was certain that the kid was wearing women's outfits. I mean really? Is it that hard to wear men's clothing? Maybe he should get the effeminate pixie back just like the song suggests. It would only be fair. Kurt Hummel had better watch out because now he's enraged The Fury and if The Fury really wants to make him suffer he'll have to do something truly cold. It's like they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.


	2. Funhouse

Wow, I can't believe the response I received for the first chapter of this fic. I'm really pleased that some of you guys like an angry Kurt. I certainly do!

Sorry that the next chappie took so long but I had over 400 report cards to complete for Monday and (unfortunately) work takes precedence. Hope the continuation lives up to your expectations.

Jace.

* * *

**_Funhouse_**

Dave Karofsky attempted his return to school the following day but being thrown into the dumpster on his arrival did not bode well. He took a brief moment of satisfaction from the fact that he was able to toss Kurt in all by himself but it took five footballers to chuck him in. There were some definite perks to being somewhat pudgier than others. After brushing the garbage from his jacket, Dave meandered toward his first class. It was a long day full of many taunts and gay slurs but Dave refused to give in to the drop kicks that were trying to make his life a living hell. It was especially hard when he was slushied by Azimio again but another swift visit to the bathroom quickly fixed that.

Whilst Dave was physically in his classes, mentally he was not. His mind was desperately trying to decide on a course of action to get even with Hummel. He got himself into this mess by not thinking so running in without some kind of plan would be dumber than trying to eat with one chopstick. By the end of the day, he was no closer to puzzling out a way to humiliate the openly out singer. At least his thoughts had distracted him from his more pressing concern. How on Earth was he going to survive football training?

Trudging unhappily toward the locker room, Dave started to wonder just how many limbs would remain attached to him by the end of the practice. Usually it was the Beiste who caused him to internally quake with fear. Seriously, she's one scary lady. Today it was everyone else that he was anxious of. He needn't have bothered getting so worked up. As he reached for the door to the locker room, he was brutally barged from behind into the wall. Then he felt nothing.

The roof in the sick room steadily swam into focus and Dave decided that it was truly a hideous sight. In fact it was only his third trip to the room and the other two times he'd been vertical. The grey panelling stretched out expansively, offending his eyes with its existence.

"How are you feeling?" asked a feminine voice to Dave's left, causing him to jump in surprise.

He visually confirmed that it was in fact the school nurse before he replied with a cheerily forced tone. "Yeah, I'm feeling fine. Great even."

A scowl developed quickly on her brow and her hands flew to her hips. "Karofsky, tell me the truth. Now."

Ignoring the pounding in his skull, Dave pasted on what he hoped was a sincere looking smile. "It's really not that bad, just a little sore. That's all."

The nurse pursed her lips and grabbed a clipboard from a nearby table. She asked him all sorts of stupid questions for which he was profoundly thankful for. The longer he was in here the less he out was on the field.

"Mr Karofsky, how did you sustain the injury?" the nurse asked. Her hand paused over the clipboard as if she already knew the answer.

Dave answered with a small shrug. "I fell."

There was a moment of pause. "Did you fall over on your own or did you have help?"

"I, er, I..." he petered out. Admitting he was pushed would do nothing to solve his problems in fact it might even make it worse. On the other hand, he would look incredibly stupid in front of the nurse if he lied and said he just fell over.

"Look," the nurse interjected, expertly cutting through Dave's internal monologue. "I have a very strong suspicion that your head injury was not a result of a simple fall. In most cases, someone who is falling over will instinctually try to stop their descent with a hand. This usually results in fractures of the humorous, radius and ulna. You have no defensive wounds, not even a simple bruise which means you were probably pushed very hard from behind and into something besides the floor."

Dave understood very little of the medical stuff the nurse was saying, only that he was pretty much busted. "Fine, I was pushed and I hit a wall."

"Did you see who it was?" she inquired politely with a grin on her face. No doubt she was pleased that she'd been right not that he had been pushed.

"No, I never saw who it was." His tone was subdued.

The nurse released a huge breath before quickly saying, "Well, it's my recommendation that since you were bullied to a degree which resulted in an injury, you'll need to have at least three sessions with Miss Pillsbury."

"WHAT!" thundered Dave in horror but there was no persuading the nurse. She sent him from her room straight to the woman who's so clean she uses industrial disinfectant to wipe her desk down with five times a day. He gloomily walked to the Guidance Officer's brightly lit room. She was sitting straighter than the Queen of England with her hands delicately folded on the table in front of her. There were five leaflets placed in an extremely neat row. Dave was almost positive that they had been aligned by ruler.

Dave gently knocked on the glass window and saw Miss Pillsbury's face blanche at the action. He was sure she would be cleaning off the slight smudge as soon as he left her room again. After opening the door, Dave stood stupidly in the doorway. "Um, hi Miss P."

The insane smile had already returned to the woman's face. "David Karofsky, please come in and sit down. Nurse Jones informed me that you have been a victim of physical abuse at the school. Remember that everything we discuss in this room is one hundred percent confidential so you can say anything you like to me and no one will ever know. Do you think that this attack is related to the recent rumour that you are homosexual?"

Karofsky had no idea how she managed to say all of that so quickly but somehow she had managed it. He plonked into the chair and it gave an almost ominous creak under his weight. "Er, yes, I think it has a lot to do with that."

Emma nodded to herself as she leant in, giving Dave the impression of a swooping vulture. "Are you homosexual?" There was no beating about the bush with the woman.

"NO!" screamed Dave. He'd been denying it to himself for so long that it spilled out quickly.

Miss P looked rather disappointed by the admission but perked up almost instantly. "Well then, my suggestion is that you publicly prove to them that you are heterosexual and the harassment will quickly cease."

Dave hadn't really considered that as a viable option. He could date some girl and become popular again but really, he hadn't exactly denied the rumours. In fact he took it all without so much as a word, like a pick-pocket in Cairo. No one would believe him now even if he screwed Santana in the middle of the cafeteria during recess. Ew, even thinking about that image made him want to vomit. He glanced back at the councillor. "What would you suggest I do if, er, if it was, well, true?" He imagined bashing his skull against the desk since he would never do something like that in front of Miss Pillsbury, even though he really wanted to for sounding like a complete pussy.

The GO's head tilted up in silent exultation. She now knew the truth. Dave was one hundred percent flaming queen! No straight man would ever ask that. Her mouth quirked into a grin, exposing her almost vampiric teeth at the juicy gossip. She wordlessly maintained her smile and gestured to the leaflets in front of her.

Having forgotten their existence, David took the time to take in the titles. He stopped reading them when he came to the third one. It was called _Happy Homos. Begin your new life as a queer peer._ It was underscored with a rainbow and little stick figures of two boys and two girls holding hands. "What the fuck is that?" he asked, gesturing at the monstrosity of a brochure.

Miss P smiled. "That's almost exactly what the last young man I gave it to said."

"You want me to read that? There is no way in hell that I'm even going to touch that fugly thing!" Dave was so shocked that he almost fell off his chair.

"Not exactly. I would like you to choose one and read it thoroughly. I know them all word perfect so don't even think about pretending to read it."

With a huge sigh, Dave selected _Boys Who Like Boys_ and jammed it quickly into his bag. He felt that even holding it might cause his outfit to mutate into some sort of Lady Gaga-esque kind of costume. "Alright, I'll read the blasted thing."

Emma smiled kindly at him (which caused the hockey player to cringe) with a quiet, "Excellent! Now, the school cannot really do anything about your incident because the perpetrator was not caught. Unless someone else comes forward with information on the matter, McKinley High can't help you at the moment."

"They won't," replied Dave sadly, his eyes on the desk in front of him.

"I know," agreed Miss P quietly. "I'd like to see you on Friday straight after your last class to discuss the pamphlet."

"Okay," Dave assented as he rose to his feet. "Thanks, you know. For not making me feel like a freak and all."

Emma just nodded her head, her coppery curls bouncing around her shoulders.

Dave made his way from Miss P's office toward the door but was stopped in his tracks by a sinister laugh. "Look! There's the other one."

Two of the footballers had Kurt pressed up against a wall as Azimio looked on in contempt. Despite the fact that he was being assaulted by two much more muscly boys, Kurt's head was still held up high, looking at Azimio with disdain. The sight caused Dave's heart to give a little flutter before he clamped out the feelings with the knowledge that all of this was his fault in the first place.

"How amazing," stated Kurt with venom. "We used to be neighbours and then I came out. You were best friends with Karofsky and now he's gay. I wonder exactly how long it will take before someone else near you manages to catch homosexuality."

Azimio looked on in horror as his brain seemed to be screaming at him. Had he turned them gay? "Did I make you queer?" he asked quietly aloud to himself.

Kurt laughed loudly, "You misinformed fool. Homosexuality is something that you are born with and there's no way to change it. Believe me, if I could I would just so you'd leave me alone. But I can't. No one can. Get over it."

Noticing that Azimio's right hand had curled into a fist, Dave knew that a punch would soon be coming. He started forward and walked toward Azimio. "Zim, just leave him alone." It was the only time that Dave had ever said anything in his defence since he was outed. The irony that it was for Kurt rather than himself was not lost on him.

"Don't call me that. Ever. You have no right, not anymore." The hatred etched on his face hurt more than the words ever would.

"Fine," Dave muttered as he began to continue on his way to his original destination. At least he'd hopefully saved Kurt from being decked. Kurt really should learn to control his mouth. For a brief second Dave imagined exactly what he'd like Kurt's mouth to be doing and he was glad that no one would ever be able to see what he was picturing in his mind.

After letting himself into Max, his maroon SUV, Dave sighed loudly. It was hard to tell which day had been worse, yesterday or today. With another sigh he turned the key in the ignition as his car roared into life. After reversing out of his parking space, the radio finally came to life mid-way through one of P!nk's songs. Dave tapped along on the steering wheel as he considered exactly how much he hated school now.

_Echoes knocking on locked doors. All the laughter from before. I'd rather live out on the street than in this haunted memory.  
I've called the movers, called the maids, we'll try to exorcise this place. Drag my mattress to the yard. Crumble, tumble house of cards._

_This used to be a Funhouse but now it's full of evil clowns. It's time to start the countdown. I'm gonna burn it down, down, down._  
_This used to be a Funhouse but now it's full of evil clowns. It's time to start the countdown. I'm gonna burn it down, down, down._

_I'm gonna burn it down._

It didn't matter if Kurt and him were on the same side, being gay and all. He'd still hurt him for everything. The destruction of Dave's life would be equalled only by the destruction of another, Hummel's. If only he could work out how.


	3. Stay Awake

_Hey!_

_Sorry to do this but I noticed a few errors when I reread this a few days ago, so I thought I'd adjust it. Plus it allowed me to add this little blurbie too._

_The reason this story had such a long break was because I went on a two month holiday and then had to contend with floods and a cyclone (twister for all you Americans out there!) whilst moving to a new town. I still am missing all my stuff so this chapter had been totally created on my mobile phone. Yes, pity would be totally appropriate._

_Thanks to those who have been following and hopefully enjoying it so far. Plus a big shout out to all of my reviewers, they make my day, week, year and lifetime._

_Jace._

* * *

**_Stay Awake_**

Dave sleepily slammed his hand down on his alarm to stop it's incessant beeping and sighed deeply. The week had both flown and crawled by. Quite frankly it was the most bizarre time of his life. Monday was when he assaulted Kurt's lips and Tuesday was when Kurt brought that stupid private school dick jockey to try to talk or some bullshit like that. Wednesday was when he was outed and yesterday was just plain embarrassing. Thank fuck it's Friday. He just had to survive one more day of school plus that session with Miss P and he could hide from the world in his room for two glorious days.

As he drove to school, Dave could already feel the tension in his body. He knew full well that when Max pulled up into school he'd be diving into the dumpster. Again. Sadly he was not disappointed but he did manage to give Zim a pretty intense death glare and refused to rise to any of his taunts. If there was one thing his ex-childhood friend despised, it was being ignored. Dave derived a lot of satisfaction from that.

There was still twenty minutes before school was due to start so Dave marched toward the staff room, ignoring the gay slurs he endured along the way. Originally, he thought it was going to be a difficult conversation, but Coach Beiste was rather understanding of his quitting the football team.

"Look, I get that you're having some pretty tough times, kid," noted Coach as she looked up to him. Kid? Seriously? "Personal problems come with the territory. Are you completely sure that this is what you want because if you're out of the team, you're out. No second chances."

As if he needed to think about that one. The only reason he joined the squad was because Zim wanted them to be in it together. Well, wild horses wouldn't be able to drag him to a football practice ever again.

"I'm totally one hundred percent sure, Coach," Dave responded almost immediately.

Coach Beiste nodded her head in response to his decision. "If that's what you want, you're off the team." Before she could blink she found herself with an armful of a very happy Karofsky. She froze with no knowledge of what to do as Dave sheepishly retreated.

"Thanks Coach," smiled Karofsky bashfully.

As he turned to leave, Coach Beiste stopped him. "One last thing, kiddo. Since today is your last day on the team, it's the last time you can wear your jacket to school. Sorry but that's the rules."

Dave's smile promptly slid from his face. "D-do I have to give it back."

"No. It's yours to keep but it can only be worn by current players. Just like the Cheerio's uniforms." He could see that she felt bad about the whole situation but before he could say anything in return, they heard the bell.

Dave nodded with a weak grin and a quiet, "Okay," as he rushed from the room to his form class. The last thing he needed this week was a detention to add to his long list of things that sucked. As he raced away, he lamented in his head that he could no longer wear Kevin to school anymore. Yes, it was true. Dave had also named his most prized article of clothing as well as his car.

It was during form that Dave realised something truly horrific. He hadn't read that stupid brochure that he grabbed from Miss P. In fact, he hadn't even taken it out of his bag. Shit. She claimed to know it word perfect and he didn't doubt it. She'd probably memorised every brochure in her room just because she had nothing better to do. Plus she's anal. He really didn't need yet another person who was disappointed by him.

So he came up with a plan. There was no way Dave could afford to miss another geometry or English class and the other two he had today were biology and art. There was zero percent chance of missing art. For starters it was his favourite class and it was a nice way to end the week. Secondly, Zim wasn't in it, making it even more appealing. He couldn't skip bio purely because Mr Porter scared the living shit out of him.

Which left only one option. Recess. Now, there was only one place in the whole school that Jordan Azimio would never dare to tread. The library. So when his English class let out he snuck off to the sacred ground of learning. A place that he'd only been in twice before. Unsurprisingly, there were many tables free in the extensive crypt of mouldy books. Finding one at the very back near the non-fiction section, Dave gracelessly plonked himself down with a sigh of relief. No one would hassle him here.

With a shifty glance around the room he shakily extracted the brochure from his bag and dropped it onto the table in front of him. He stared at it. And stared some more. Since the muted blue cover of _Boys Who Like Boys_ didn't magically open itself in a bright glittery haze of gay pride, Dave took several deep breaths before closing his eyes and flipping the cover over.

With a peek at the leaflet, he noticed that there was a distinct lack of pink and purple. He sighed with relief. In fact the brochure had no stupid illustrations (immediately he thought back to that other hideous leaflet with a violent shudder) and was plain blue with black text. It didn't even look vaguely homosexual. For some reason Dave took that to be a good sign.

So he began to read. It started with a blurb about how being gay isn't a choice. It went on to outline various topics such as coming out, porn, relationships and safe sex. That one caused Dave to blush several times and completely freaked him out. Sure he'd known that gay guys had sex but until that moment he'd never considered how it was logistically possible. Now that he knew he was feeling ashamed, disgusted, horrified and oddly turned on.

Having read the complete inside of the brochure, he flipped to the back. It was filled with questions. Are you gay? Do you feel attracted to both boys and girls? Are you a top, bottom or versatile? Who is your ideal man? Which celebrity is hotter, Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom or George Clooney? After a brief thought on the subject, he decided that he'd choose Orlando because, well, he was just so pretty in the Lord of the Rings.

A brief look at his watch was enough to make him swear. He was already thirty-five minutes late to biology. With a small shrug of his shoulders, Dave continued to think about the questions on the pamphlet instead of showing up to class. It wasn't worth the chewing out that Mr Porter would give him for showing up that late.

Just as Dave had hoped, art class had been fantastic. The sculpture he had been working on recently was really starting to come together. It was also a good place to be. Nobody made fun of his newfound sexuality there. Everyone was too busy doing their own thing.

Dave finished washing the clay from his hands at the sink and cleared his work station. He was rushing as fast as he could so he wouldn't be late for Miss P but he was cutting it rather fine. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he sped to her office but was stopped by the sound of his voice. He ducked quickly into a stairwell so he could avoid the elfin boy who outed him. He was talking to his larger friend. Hmmm, so it's alright for his friends to be a little chubby but not Dave? Bitch. He stopped ranting in his head to listen in.

"...believe it. He sounds so nice," gushed Mercedes with a fling of her dark tresses.

"He is! He's thoughtful, kind and super cute. He even asked me to listen to the Warblers sing again even though last time I was spying on them and I'm part of the competition." Kurt said all of this in a rush, a deep red blush on his cheeks.

"Damn, boy, you've got it bad!" she chuckled.

"I know but he's so irresistible, especially in his Dalton uniform..." Dave wouldn't have been surprised to see drool dripping from his mouth. Mercedes just laughed at Kurt and neither glee member noticed him as they walked by.

When the coast was clear, Dave rushed straight to Miss Pillsbury's office for his second session. She didn't seemed too worried about his lateness but then again he had never seen her angry either. For some reason, Dave thought that she'd probably be a firecracker if she did go off the deep end.

After a brief greeting, Miss P cut straight to the chase. "Now David, did you read the brochure as I asked?" she enquired as she placed her well-manicured hands flat on the table top before her, a maniacal grin on her face.

Dave scratched awkwardly at his neck and shyly nodded his head. "It talked about a lot of stuff."

Miss P bounced her head up and down. "Yes. It certainly does." She eyeballed him in a way that made him feel like he was some kind of Big Mac Meal and she was a horde of hungry tourists.

"Err." Dave sputtered with no idea of what to say.

"Since you seem to have very little to say, I'll start." She sent him a disappointed look but it was immediately wiped from her face with a slight flick of her hair. "What part of the brochure stood out to you the most?"

Dave reflected on the question and thought back to when he had read it in the library. "Oh, um, well I suppose the first thing I thought was that it didn't look very... erm..." he petered out with an embarrassed look.

"Homosexual?" Emma finished for him with wide eyes which caused her to look innocent of the crime she had just committed.

Nodding stonily, Dave looked from her face to his shoes. "Yeah," he admitted quietly.

Miss P heaved a little sigh. "Look, David. You seem to be under the impression that homosexuals or g-gays," she fumbled out the word she was sure he'd used almost daily but never in reference to himself, "are all flamboyant and obvious. They're not."

"Really?" asked Dave in surprise.

"Well, look at football teams. How many professional NHL teams..." she began before Dave corrected her.

"NFL, Miss P."

She paused momentarily to absorb the information before continuing. "Well then, how many professional NFL teams have a paraplegic as a starter?"

"None," answered Dave easily.

"Last year, would you have guessed that he would be one of your team mates?" She asked, looking owlishly at him.

"No. I honestly thought Hudson was crazy when he came up with that one." He chuckled as he remembered the look on Coach Beiste's face when he first approached her about it.

"Artie doesn't look like a footballer, yet he's on the team. It's like the age old saying. Don't judge a book by its cover. Only a small portion of homosexuals appear as flamboyant as they do on television. Really, they're just normal people. Just like you are. The only difference between them and heterosexual men is who they prefer to be with." Miss P finished her rant with a glazed look of fanaticism. She obviously believed everything she said.

"I suppose," he admitted. "The only real g-g-gay boy I've ever met was Hummel, so I just thought all of th-those people were the same."

They went on to talk about gay stereotyping and other issues from the brochure for quite some time. By the end of the session, Dave felt a little better about himself, not that he would admit it to anyone.

He left the school building feeling the best he had felt all week. Until he arrived at his car. "Max what have they done to you?" he moaned pitifully as his precious SUV came into view. The bastards had spray painted his wheels and hubcaps florescent pink and scribbled FAG on the passenger side of the vehicle. No other damage was visible. His only consolation was that nobody was around to witness how much it had affected him. That and they hadn't scrawled FAGGOT across his windscreen. Seeing the road was kind of important when driving.

When Dave got home his father was still at work. He ate his dinner in silence with his mother staring at him in concern. He washed up his plate without a word and trundled to his room.

After trying to fall asleep for a couple of hours he sought out his mum. He found Sarah Karofsky sitting on the couch, watching Jerry Springer as she repaired a pair of his father's shorts. The little needle flashed in the light of the television.

"Mum?" he asked gently, realising it was the first time he had said anything since arriving home.

The relief was evident in his mother's voice when she replied, "Yes, Davey?"

"I, I had a really bad day at school today. Well all week really and I was wondering if..." he trailed of in embarrassment.

"Yes?" she questioned. Her dark brown eyebrows pitched upward in concern and confusion.

"Do you remember how I used to have that nightmare about..." his sentence died out again.

Sarah let loose a little giggle. "You mean the ones where you were being chased by angry orange leprechauns?" she asked knowing full well that was exactly what he was referring to.

Dave glared at her before trying one last time before he died of mortification. "Well, I've been trying to get to sleep since I went upstairs but..."

With a look of understanding, Sarah finally understood what her only child wanted. She gracefully stood up and held out her hand which he accepted immediately. After they arrived in his room, she perched on the edge of his bed as he settled himself beneath the covers.

Sarah gently petted her son's hair as she began to sing.

_Stay awake, don't rest your head.  
__Don't lie down upon your bed.  
__While the moon drifts in the skies.  
__Stay awake, don't close your eyes._

_Though the world is fast asleep.  
__Though your pillow's soft and deep.  
__You're not sleepy as you seem.  
__Stay awake, don't nod and dream.  
__Stay awake, don't nod and dream._

Just as the lullaby from Mary Poppins had done to Jane and Michael Banks, Dave found himself unable to stay awake any longer. His swirling thoughts of the week had dulled and dimmed to nothingness.

Sarah watched her boy's face lose its tension as his breathing began to slow. Something was happening to her baby and tomorrow she was going to find out exactly what it was, whether he liked it or not.


	4. Dance In The Dark

_G' day! (Yes, we do actually say this here, just not very often...)_

_Here's the latest chappie of my fic. I'm torn between my original idea and a new one. At the moment, I think they may be able to coexist but I'm not completely sure. Thanks to all of my reviewers out there. It means a lot to me that you've taken the time to give me a little feedback. Many hugs!_

_I hope you enjoy it. Jace._

* * *

**_Dance In The Dark_**

Dave woke to the delicious aroma of sizzling bacon and eggs. In that moment, Dave knew two things. One - today was going to be the best day of the week so far (not like that would be hard) and two - there was a less than zero percent chance that he'd be able to get through brekkie without his mother attacking him about last night.

He had a brief shower and changed into a navy blue polo shirt and his favourite pair of jeans. With a rueful look at Kevin, Dave knew that he had to get used to life without his letterman. Starting now.

Sarah Karofsky was quietly humming to herself as she snatched up the bacon from the frying pan. She brushed a wayward couple of strands of her chocolate brown tresses behind an ear and let out a screech of surprise when she spotted her son behind her.

"Sweetie," she scolded. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" She panted and tried to catch her breath, fanning herself with her hand.

Dave offered a slight shrug. "Sorry mum. I thought you would have heard me thumping down the stairs."

Having recovered herself, Sarah offered her usual greeting as she deposited Dave's plate in front of him at the table. "Good morning, Davey."

"Morning, mum," he chanted back. This polite response had been drilled into him since early childhood.

"Where's Kevin today? I can't even remember the last time I saw you without him on. Well, besides when you're in your boxers or a towel." She looked with interest at her son as his face began to flush.

"Mum!" shouted Dave in mortification. He sighed roughly before looking his mother in the eyes. "We need to talk."

"Yes?" she asked. Her left eyebrow was arched.

"I can't wear Kevin anymore because I'm no longer on the football team," Dave explained.

"What happened? Did you get into trouble?" Her motherly concern was powerful.

"No, nothing like that. I, er, quit." Looking down at his half-eaten bacon, Dave began to wish he'd finished it before he started this little chat with his mum. Damn.

Sarah's one word response was, "Why?"

"Well, I only joined up because Zim did. Now that we're no longer friends, I don't see the point in pretending it's fun anymore." Dave mumbled his way through the explanation knowing full well what his mother was about to ask. As she opened her mouth to speak, Dave simply stated, "We don't get on anymore because he can't handle the fact that I'm, er, g-gay." It was the first time he'd ever called himself that and despite the fact he was freaking the shit out, it somehow felt right.

Before he knew it, Dave found himself bound in a tight embrace. "Oh Davey, I'm so proud of you right now!" Sarah crowed.

"Proud of who for what?" asked Paul Karofsky through a loud yawn as he entered the room. He wiped his face as he tried to focus his eyes on the pair. It seemed blue was a common theme for the Karofsky men, he was still in his royal blue boxers with a blue and white striped singlet.

Sarah wriggled her eyebrows at her son. When he didn't respond to her excited encouragement, she stared him down.

"Fine," exploded Dave, throwing his hands in the air in defeat. "Mum's proud of me because I told her that I'm gay." Dave was only mildly surprised that he didn't stutter over the word.

"I see, pass me the salt, would you son?" Paul asked as he seated himself at his plate of cooked breakfast.

"THAT'S IT?" roared Dave. "I've been angsting over this for the past year or so and all you have to say is 'I'm so proud of you' or 'pass the goddam salt'? What the hell?"

After a beat, Paul responded with, "I never said goddam." The parents burst out laughing and the stifling, awkward tension that Dave had felt since he sat down to breakfast finally eased.

Sarah sent a beaming look at her husband which he returned. Not knowing what the hell was up with the parentals, Dave looked on with complete confusion. "What?" asked Dave.

"I've been certain that you were gay for some time now, Davey," Sarah informed him. "The signs were all there. You were always happy to run around the house, singing when you were little. You also chose your favourite NHL team because you liked the quote, "Pwitty cowour of the jewzees". Add that to the fact that you've only ever had one girlfriend, you've named everything you own that's important to you with a male name and the angry acting out behaviour you've recently been exhibiting, you're almost a carbon copy of Lawrie."

"Who's Lawrie?" asked Dave. Hopefully this Lawrie person was a good person. He'd rather die than remind his mother of someone she didn't like.

As if she could sense his discomforting thoughts, Sarah smiled warmly at Dave. "He's my brother, your uncle. Lawrence Arthur Bell."

Dave blinked several times. "I have an uncle? Really? Why didn't you tell me? This would have been so much easier if I had someone I could actually relate to."

"Well, that would be all my fault, I'm afraid," confessed Mrs Karofsky.

With a pleading look at her husband, Paul sighed and began to tell the story. "When I was marrying your mother, Lawrence was one of my groomsmen. At that time, he was still in the closet but that was about to change. Well, at the reception he had a few too many drinks and made the mistake of hitting on one of the barmen. He didn't know that Sarah and Nanna Bell were right behind him."

Sarah continued with, "Well, I also did something stupid. I made a scene. A huge scene. I said all sorts of things like how he ruined the wedding. He ruined my life. He shouldn't have been born. I couldn't believe my own brother's a fag... Sorry, Davey." She apologised when he blanched at the term. "Well, he ran off and that was the last time we ever communicated directly to each other, I'm afraid. Since then, everything we needed to say to each other was passed through Nanna Bell." Sarah had teared up pretty drastically by this point. It seemed she was truly sorry. As bad as he felt for his mother, Dave felt even worse for the uncle that he'd never met.

Paul looked at the two people he loved the most in the world with a speculative glance. "Maybe we should do something about it then."

"What do you mean?" asked Dave.

"Perhaps, Sarie, it is time to bury the hatchet." Paul looked expectantly at his wife as a multitude of emotions flickered across her face. Shame, guilt, worry, fear, anger, hopelessness, yearning, hope and love flitted past at the speed of light.

"I, er, I, I..." she petered out, trying to reach a decision. "I think you're right. Will he talk to me? Will he even listen? How is he? God, I hope he forgives me." With that Sarah collapsed into tears on her husband's shoulder. He made soothing noises and let her cry herself out.

Whilst Sarah was breaking apart, Dave took the time to consider what this could all mean. He had a gay uncle that he never knew about. Maybe he was so similar to Dave, perhaps they would be almost completely alike. Then again, maybe he would be more like a Kurt kind of gay. Gay. Wow, apparently he could now think the term in his brain easily. In only a few days too! Miss P would be so proud of him. He'd have to tell her all about it at his last session on Monday.

Dave left his still weeping mother who was still to let go of his father after scarfing the rest of his brekkie to hide in his room. It was more than super uncomfortable to see his mother fall to pieces like that so he decided to do something to take his mind off it all. HALO had never been so good. It was fun to play, especially when some of his opponents seemed to be pretty dim. _sHaRkFiNn _always seemed to get killed several times in the first minute. What a loser. _WarBleraine_ was also quite useless but to a lesser extent. They did have one decent player who had managed to kill Dave a couple of times. A worthy opponent, _RaspBerrY SurPrisE_.

When HALO lost its appeal, Dave started to think about the whole Kurt situation. An idea had been forming in his head since he overheard that conversation between Kurt and the other diva. First things first, he had to find this Blaine kid and ascertain whether he was that private school dick jockey. If he was, Dave would be in business. How the hell was he going to find him? Especially since he couldn't even remember the name of the school he went to and he was sure Kurt said it too. Damn! All he could remember was that his name was Blaine. Well that wasn't particularly helpful.

Dave enjoyed a good night's sleep knowing not only that he still had a whole Sunday ahead of him but also he'd told his parents and finally said the word out loud. "I'm a goddam fucking gay!" announced Dave sleepily as he began to drift off. That was the first time the idea didn't seem to bother him too much.

The next morning was spent sleeping in and enjoying the fact that his bed was super comfortable. At lunch (well, brekkie), Dave found out that he was going to meet his uncle Lawrence and his husband Jerry. Apparently they were lawyers and somehow managed to achieve a marriage despite the fact that they were still not allowed to in Ohio. Go figure. They must be really good at their trade. Paul had invited Lawrence and his family to the Karofsky house for dinner on Tuesday but were instead asked over to their house. Possibly so they could evict the family if things went pear shaped. The arrangement was achieved through Nanna Bell, who invited herself along too just so she could see her two children finally in the same room again after so many years.

Dave was quite excited about it all. A new family who he was related to and someone who might be able to help him come to terms with his gayness all rolled into one.

In true Dave Karofsky style, he celebrated the news by playing HALO. He should probably try to stop playing the computer game so much but that would have to wait for a day when he wasn't celebrating!

This time he was on the same team as _WarBleraine_, who was not any better than he was yesterday. At least _sHaRkFiNn_ was still on the other team, aided by the infamous _RaspBerrY SurPrisE_. He truly was the only reason that the other team was still winning.

After a couple hours of playing, Dave was shot down. Usually, that just irritated him but what got to him was that he had been killed by a team mate! Dave angrily opened a chat line to the offending player.

**WTF? Wot woz that 4, dude?** He typed in to WarBleraine.

After a few moments a sheepish reply dinged on his screen. **Terribly sorry, I thought you were playing for the other team.**

**R u implying that im gay?** Dave couldn't resist typing back what first popped into his head. Was he joking around with a random online? About being gay? What a dork. Oh wait - he was playing HALO after all...

**Hah! No, I wasn't. If that's how you would like to take it, feel free.** The response returned. It appeared that _War_ liked to type out every word. Screw that, it would take Dave forever to do that.

**I dunno bout switchin teams. Im already gay.** Waiting for some more homophobic remarks in the same vein as the ones from school, Dave was pleasantly surprised by the next post.

**Me too! I'm a junior at Dalton. One of three gay students here. They're both not my type though. :-(**

Dave laughed. **Lol! I only just came out 2 my folks yestrdy. They were both happy for me. Still in shock. Thought theyd h8 me.**

**Good for you! The name's Blaine if you hadn't already worked it out yet from my screen name. And your name, TotalFURY, would be...**

Dave blinked at his screen. Blaine? Surely that couldn't be a common name. Plus he was somewhere nearby or he wouldn't be able to play on this network. He was also gay too. It must be Kurt's Blaine! **Im Dave. I think we mighta met IRL. That is if ur friends w Kurt.**

**I am indeed friends with a boy called Kurt. Are you the guy who kissed him in the locker room? If you were, I'm impressed. I never would have guessed that you'd come out so fast. Well done! **Even though Dave knew next to nothing about this Blaine bloke, he sounded rather nice.

A smile graced his lips as he typed. **Yeah, thats rite. I kissed him even tho he didn't want me 2.**

**You were repressing a lot so I think it was rather understandable.**

**Really? Thx Blaine. It means a lot 2 me. Iv been havin it tuff l8ly. Is that offer 2 tlk still open coz I could rly use a friend.** Dave hated to be manipulative but Kurt had to pay and this opportunity was just too good to pass up. Blaine sounded like he could become a friend anyway and since Dave's total friends now equalled zero (as evidenced by his facebook page), having someone to talk to would be nice.

**Of course.** Popped up the message almost instantly. **We could IM or perhaps meet up in real life if you prefer.**

**IRL wood be gr8. How bout Starbucks after skool 2morrow?**

**Sure. I'll be there at four o'clock. See you there, Dave.**

**Fine, catcha then, Blaine.**

**I've got to go, my roommate's just got back and he despises HALO with a passion. In fact I think he's about to kill me now... See you tomorrow.** Before Dave could reply, the chat box went inactive since Blaine had apparently quit the game.

For the first time in ages Dave indulged in an activity from his youth. Singing in the shower. Now that his parents knew he was gayer than Elton John minus the vocal talent, he no longer had to hide his gayer tendencies. Soon the Karofsky household was flooded with an imperfectly performed rendition of one of GaGa's songs.

_Baby loves to dance in the dark, 'cause when he's lookin' she falls apart. Baby loves to dance in the dark.  
__Baby loves to dance in the dark, 'cause when he's lookin' she falls apart. Baby loves to dance, loves to dance in the dark._

Maybe his times of hiding in the shadows were over, Dave mused to himself as he dried off and donned his pyjamas. The closet was no longer his home at home. Now that his parents know his secret, he could relax around them instead of worrying about it. He could now focus his attention on other things. More important things, like Hummel's imminent destruction.

As he brushed his teeth he considered just how good the last two days were. Best weekend ever! Pity he had to face school again tomorrow but now that he could put his plan into place it would soon be much better. Oh yes, Kurt would pay. Soon. With that comforting thought, Dave let himself drift asleep.


	5. Whataya Want From Me

_Hey._

_Long time no me. Sorry but life has been busy and I fell into the Avatar - The Last Airbender universe for a while. I saw this fic and thought I'd progress it somewhat._

_Hope you like it (that's if you can even remember the plot, I had to reread it myself...)._

_Jace._

* * *

**_Whataya Want From Me_**

Dave rolled out of his bed and began to get ready for school. When he was eating his cereal for breakfast, Paul looked at him over his usual morning newspaper. "Son, what happen to your SUV?" He asked with a mild tone.

Refusing to look up, Dave mumbled, "Some of the footballers attacked it." Before his father could say anything, Dave met his eyes. "I think I'll leave it like that. I don't want to let them know how much it annoyed me. It'd probably piss them off even more."

Paul's mouth tightened at the curse but he didn't comment. He just turned his attention back to his paper and continued to decode the cryptic crossword.

After Dave had washed up his empty bowl and spoon, he made lunch. This was something he hadn't done since elementary school but there was no way he'd be left alone in the cafeteria. Supplies were necessary.

A short drive and dumpster dive later, Dave made his way to homeroom. The snarling comments didn't seem to worry him as much as they did. Maybe it was because he was starting to get used to it. It could also be because he had his parent's support. Then again it could be that this afternoon he would begin his campaign to ruin Kurt's life.

Biology was boring and Geometry was killing him. Why the hell was pi essential? The only pie he wanted was for dessert. Dave made his way back to his table in the library and began to eat his already prepared lunch. With nothing else to do, he pulled out his maths homework and began to complete it. It had been months since he's ever tried to do his homework and he had never done it during lunch before.

Amazing how times had changed, he pondered. Usually he'd be goofing off with Azimio whilst trying to peek at Kurt without his friends noticing. Well that wasn't going to be a problem anymore. Everyone knew he liked guys. Even his parents. The thought made him smile as he finished off his third circumference problem. Bloody pi.

He packed up his textbook and almost finished homework when the bell rang and he hurried off to his art class. Letting his mind meander as he moulded and shaped the clay, Dave barely noticed the passage of time as his artwork continued to grow. It was inspired by the four elements which (according to ancient beliefs) were responsible for the creation of life. For the last few lessons he had been diligently constructing a lotus blossom with ripples over it's surface. It was his intention to create four in total, one flower for each element.

With a smirk, he called over Miss Walters. The middle aged woman finished her conversation with another student and made her way toward him. It would be an understatement to say that he liked her. He absolutely adored her. She was quite short with a cascade of deep black hair and rather hippy-esque clothing. She had lots of hideous floral-patterned long-style dresses that would always make Kurt's face blanch whenever he'd spot the woman. Dave wouldn't have it any other way.

"Well, David, that definitely looks interesting." Her green eyes flowed over the artwork as she took it in from all angles.

With a proud grin, Dave announced, "I'm ready for it to be fired in the kiln."

"If that's what you want, David," she acquiesced. "But before you do add it to the collection in the oven, I have a question for you. Is this one the element of air or water?"

Dave was taken aback. Wasn't it obvious? "It's water Miss Walters."

She nodded. "I had a feeling that was the one you were aiming for. I know that you're working hard on this piece. Much harder than some others but hard work isn't only what makes art. The concept is good and your capabilities are progressing but think of what makes a sculpture good. There is much that paint can do to the outside surface but is that the meaning of a sculpture?" The teacher looked at one of her favourite students as his expression clouded over, deep in thought. She always had a soft spot for the boy. He was one of the few jocks that seemed to understand some of the subtleties of the arts.

With a shake of his head, Dave looked imploringly at Miss Walters. "I still don't understand what you're saying, Miss."

Swiftly glancing at her watch, she smiled at the teen. "Let's make a deal. Leave the flower out this one time and ponder this little question. Would the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore look better or worse if we painted over them and why?" Without waiting for any kind of response, she toddled away, getting the class to pack up. Dave did as suggested but placed the question in the back of his mind.

With many sighs, he struggled through his first Gym class since his outing and boy was it painful. Of all the times to begin dodgeball. He wasn't particularly light on his feet as it was but getting attacked first every time began to get tedious. That and getting out because his team-mates would "accidentally" hit him stung but soon the lesson was over. It was funny seeing how when it was time to change in and out of their Gym clothes all of the boys hid on the opposite side of them room from him. Well, it was both funny and depressing.

Soon it was time for his final appointment with Miss P. She really was one of the reasons that he was still sane. In two small sessions she had helped him out more than Azimio had in the last ten years combined. No wonder he didn't really miss his friend. Well, it was hard to miss someone when they made it their mission to hurt you in every way possible. Zim was gone. This hurtful creature was all that was left.

Dave arrived at Miss P's office and let himself in with a grin. He received one in return. Before she could even open her mouth, Dave was regaling her with the tale of how he'd come out to his parents, how he had a new gay uncle that he'd be meeting tomorrow and how he was meeting up with a gay guy after school.

With an innocent couple of blinks, Emma asked airily, "Are you meeting him for advice and to become friends or are you looking for a boyfriend in him?"

Dave began to sputter incoherently. When he regained control of himself he answered, "Erm, I suppose I'm just looking for a friend. He's not really my type."

A small smirk appeared on the councillor's face. "Then who is your type?"

Dave stared at her with shock. Did she really just ask that? He floundered for a while before a name passed his lips. If it had been possible, he would have scooped it out of the air and shoved it back into his mouth. "Kurt Hummell." He looked down instead, ashamed. He'd done some really horrible things to him. Shoves, dumpster dives, slushies. He'd never like him. Ever. His plan for revenge was all he had, the only contact he could get away with.

Emma looked at the forlorn boy. "You certainly haven't done yourself any favours in that regard."

"How would you know that?" asked Dave in alarm. Did she suspect his plan?

"You're not the first homosexual student I've had in this office," she replied.

Dave paled. No doubt Miss P knew exactly how horrible he'd been. Yet she was still nice to him. "Why are you being so kind to me when I was such an asshole to him?"

"Everyone deserves the chance to be happy. So you were horrible to someone you clearly liked, you weren't the first and you won't be the last. I'm here to make sure that you know exactly how wrong you were and to guide you in a better direction." Miss P folded her hands back onto the table and looked Dave in the eye. "You have made great progress, David. With the help of your uncle and your friends, old and new, I'm sure you won't repeat that mistake."

Dave averted his eyes feeling slightly guilty. He was still planning Kurt's downfall after all. "Thanks, Miss P." As he began to leave the room he turned back to look at the red head. "Can I please see you on Wednesday? I'm not sure how I'll go meeting my new uncle and yeah..." he trailed off uncomfortably.

"Of course you can," smiled the woman and sent him on his way.

With only fifteen minutes before he's supposed to meet up with Blaine, Dave hurried to _Max_ only to discover that the pink wheels and hubcaps had mutated. The pink paint was now on the sides of his car too. There was also the addition of pink glitter paint spelling such things as gay and fag. That hurt and much more than he'd like to admit.

With a few strangled sobs, Dave unlocked his SUV and began to drive to Starbucks. He turned on the radio in hopes that something would distract him from the sorrow he was feeling. Unfortunately, the Adam Lambert song only made him wonder what exactly Azimio was trying to get from him by messing with his car.

_Hey, slow it down, whataya want from me, whataya want from me?  
__Yeah, I'm afraid, whataya want from me, whataya want from me?_

_There might have been a time I would give myself away, oh once upon a time I didn't give a damn  
__But now, here we are, so whataya want from me, whataya want from me?_

_Just don't give up, I'm workin' it out. Please don't give in, I won't let you down  
__It messed me up, need a second to breathe, just keep coming around  
__Hey, whataya want from me, whataya want from me, whataya want from me?_

Soon he was pulling into the carpark at Starbucks. He noticed some of the people both inside and outside the establishment were staring both at him and his precious _Max_. As he walked purposefully toward the entrance he heard a young boy ask his mother, "Mum, what's a fag?" Chortling on the inside, Dave made his way over to where a boy sat in a blazer and pants, as he instantly recognised the boy who had come all the way to McKinley only six days ago.

When Dave got to the table, the boy immediately stood and shook his hand before they ordered their coffees and plonked down again. Against his better judgement, Dave felt a little fluttering in his chest. It felt almost like he was on a date. Of course it was nothing of the sort. Whilst it would be fitting if he managed to steal the man Kurt no doubt wanted to go out with, Dave was not going to use someone nice like Blaine for that.

"Er, hi." Dave commented, blushing like a fool.

"Hey," replied Blaine with a smile that was too nice to be a smirk but might just be if you turned your head a little and squinted. There was a long and somewhat uncomfortable silence. "So you play HALO," opened Blaine as he tried to coax the McKinley student into talking. It was a good idea.

"Yeah! I totally love it." Dave began before launching off into a tirade about how much he hates _RaspBerrY SurPrisE_ and how the guy always seems to kill him a couple of times.

"I don't know what you're complaining about," snapped Blaine in jest. "He kills me a lot more than he kills you."

Dave shrugged. "That's because you die more often than Kenny in South Park."

Blaine pretended to be outraged but was distracted as their drinks arrived. He smiled with pleasure as he sipped his skinny espresso.

Dave looked at his mug of flat white, the only coffee he'd every really drank and took a couple of scalding gulps.

They then entertained a brief argument over which South Park character was the gayest, Big Gay Al, Kyle, Mr/Ms Garrison, Bebe, Mister Hanky, Cartman, Cartman's mother, Stan, Mr Slave or Tweek. In the end they agreed that it was definitely Kyle.

"I suppose," decided Blaine, "that we should really get down to business then. So you're gay?"

"Yeah," muttered the jock.

"How long have you known about it?"

"For a while, I guess. I just hoped it would go away or something but it never did." Dave looked sheepishly into his mug as if it contained the answers to all of his questions. Like a magic eight ball.

"I felt the same." Dave looked up in surprise at the Warbler.

"You did?"

"Yeah, I hoped it was just a phase. I mean, why else would I want to look at guy's junk? It couldn't be normal. Eventually I began to accept that it was normal. For me. Then I came out and the bullies at my school didn't like it. Not one bit. They almost killed me once and that was when I transferred to Dalton. It had started out as small things but when one of them swung a baseball bat at my head, I knew I couldn't stay there anymore." Blaine looked sadly at Dave.

Dave kept his gaze. "My friends deserted me. Sure I was one of the bullies but I'd always hoped that if I was pushing the other gay kid around, no one would notice that I was..." he couldn't continue.

"Gay," finished Blaine for him. "I saw your car. I'm assuming that it was at the hands of your former friends."

"Yeah, it was."

Blaine's bushy and almost joined eyebrows furrowed. "Only six days ago, you were nowhere near ready to face this. What happened? Did someone read your diary or something?"

Dave took a few heaving breaths before he began to tell Blaine all about how Kurt had spread it around the school. He played up a few moments and also dissolved into tears as he explained about how his friends were torturing him. Sure he was laying it on thick but he wanted to make sure that Blaine would break off whatever it was he had going with Kurt.

As he was such a nice guy, Blaine listened and sympathised. Two coffees, a cake and seven random conversations later, Dave felt that maybe he had made a friend and possibly an ally in his war against his nemesis. The Fairy Queen.


	6. It's My Life

_Heya._

_Wowsers, thanks to my reviewers, subs and faves (yes, I'm too damn lazy to type the whole words...) I must admit I was a bit surprised at the response I got about the last chappie. Pleasantly, of course. Hope you like the next bit._

_I will totally admit that I'm too lazy to check my facts so apologies if I got something wrong._

_Cheers, Jace._

* * *

**_It's My Life_**

It was Tuesday and Dave hadn't been this excited since his dad bought him _Max_ for his sweet sixteenth. He was going to meet his Uncle Lawrie tonight but first he'd have to survive the horrors of McKinley. The novelty of selecting a shirt that people would actually see hadn't worn off yet. Coupled with his current feeling of invincibility, he selected a shirt from the lower depths of his cupboard. It was one that had never been worn since the day his mother had bought it. It was a bright pink t-shirt (hence why he never chose to wear it) with the slogan, _If you don't like me, FCUK off!_

Dave knew he might get in trouble but he really couldn't care less. He'd had enough of people pushing him around. He was sick of the stupid slurs he heard every few minutes. It was time to make a statement. A bold statement. A bold statement highlighted by pink! After a quick breakfast, a raised eyebrow from his father and excited burbling (oh Davey, I just knew that would look good on you!) from his mother, Dave drove to school. Nothing on the radio held his interest so he switched it off and began to sing.

_This ain't a song for the broken-hearted, no silent prayer for the faith departed  
__And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd, you're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud_

_It's my life and it's now or never, I ain't gonna live forever, I just wanna live while I'm alive  
__My heart is like an open highway, like Frankie said, "I did it my way"  
__I just wanna live while I'm alive 'cause it's my life_

Ah, good old Bon Jovi. The lyrics grew with intensity until he was nearly singing loud enough to overpower a crying baby. As he pulled up at a set of lights, the old lady in the car next to him gaped in amazement. If that old biddy could hear him through two closed windows and a hearing aid, he must have been belting it out quite loudly indeed. He gave her a jaunty wave and chuckled merrily as he sped off again. Pulling into his usual parking space, he exited Max with another laugh. He found it far too amusing that he managed to match his outfit with his car's new paint job.

As Dave marched cheerfully toward the school, the usual suspects who tossed him into the trash every morning warily watched him as he walked by. He didn't know whether it was the fact he hadn't looked their way, that he was wearing pink or perhaps someone else managed to aggravate them more than usual which caused them to leave him be. Either way, he welcomed the reprieve.

The classes were boring and Dave still refused to enter the cafeteria, so he once again spent his lunch hour in the library. As he grabbed a sandwich from his bag, he was pleased that the librarian (who was rumoured to have roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous Period) hadn't yet discovered him eating in her precious hall. He'd be flayed alive. This time he managed to finish all of his maths homework and he even completed some of his biology assignment. Perhaps his grades would benefit from his outing. At least there were now a couple of positives about his newly exposed sexuality, not just negatives.

Nothing exciting happened until the brief period of change between Spanish and English. As he walked toward his English room, he spotted the presence of the one and only Kurt Hummell. He was leaning against his locker staring darkly at his phone. Dave couldn't help but hope that it might be in response to some kind of snarky text from Blaine but there was no way he would ever find out unless he stole the phone to see for himself. As he had been dumpster dived, slushied and teased for a few days now, he felt no desire to do such a thing to Hummell. Even if he did want to punish him. A few images or Kurt tied between two lockers in the middle of the hall butt naked sprang to mind but he was able to suppress the desire that threatened to overwhelm him.

As Dave reached a position near Kurt, he was able to see the well tailored KC vest and fitted black and white striped long-sleeved t-shirt clinging to the boy's chest. He sported black skinny jeans that left hardly anything to the imagination with the exception of how the hell he managed to sit down during class without busting out of them. Kurt slipped the phone back into his pocket with another scowl and moved in Dave's general direction.

Without looking his way, Dave marched purposefully through the corridor, the crowd parting around him in whispers. Apparently it wasn't just the bullies who gave him a wide berth when he donned pink. He saw the exact moment from the corner of his eye when Kurt noticed him. The elfin teen stopped short and his mouth opened involuntarily. Dave felt the boy's eyes travel over his shirt's slogan before moving to his feet and back up again. It was probably his imagination when he thought the boy might have lingered a little on his ass. Dave continued without breaking his stride and the day continued in its previous state of tedium.

When Dave got home he all but raced to his room and went rummaging thorough his closet, looking for an outfit for the dinner this evening. He wanted to make a good impression on his new uncle and his partner. After almost an hour of trying on different ensembles of polo shirts, Dave decided that he needed help. If Blaine was nearby, he'd probably ask him which meant that he'd probably have to endure his mother instead. Ugh.

"MUM!" he hollered loudly from his room.

A few moments later, Sarah Karofsky's head popped through the doorway. She blinked at the carnage that seemed to have occurred. Clothes were strewn all throughout the room making it look like a laundromat had vomited on it before beating a hasty retreat. Without another word she gracefully dodged her way over the many shirts that were on the floor and began to bring order to the chaos. Within barely ten minutes the room looked like it's usual self, the cupboard was full and a set of clothes lay on his bed.

With a warm smile, Sarah turned on her heel and began to leave the room. Dave scooped her up as she squealed to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Thanks Mum, you totally saved my life!"

Sarah was a little flushed with happiness. It wasn't often that her son displayed his love so openly. "No problemo, Davey. If you ever need help choosing an outfit, please ask me before you dismantle your room." She smiled as she left without waiting for a response, she could probably tell using her special mother sense that he would no doubt be embarrassed by the offer. He was.

Dave donned the green and blue horizontally striped polo shirt, jeans and slipped on a pair of sneakers. He tamed his somewhat unruly hair and sprayed a generous amount of deodorant. Now that he was ready, there was nothing to do but wait around for dinner. Naturally, he gravitated to his usual form of procrastination.

_RaspBerrY SurPrisE_ was really starting to piss him off. Not only was he unfortunate enough to get that tosser, _sHaRkFiNn_ on his team but Blaine had already killed him twice (and he was also his team). After about forty-five minutes of HALO duelling, David _TotalFURY_ Karofsky had lost three rounds in a row for the first time in about four months. His mother's voice was probably the only thing that stopped him from putting his foot through a wall. It was finally time to go.

The Karofsky's piled into the family car (not Max which Dave was considering calling Maxine when he was dressed in drag) and the drive to Uncle Lawrie's household was over quite quickly. Paul turned off the engine and walked up to his wife. She was staring at the unobtrusive pale green house with an inscrutable expression. He reached around her and guided her through the gate and up to the door with Dave trailing silently in their wake.

Sarah stared at the door, which really wasn't that interesting before shakily reaching to knock. A muffled, "Coming," was heard from the interior followed by hasty footsteps. The door was flung open to reveal a man who shared his mother's dark chocolate eyes behind a set of square-edged reading glasses. He looked a little severe and was starting to go bald. His eyes travelled over the three family members before they came to rest on Sarah. The siblings gaped at each other before the silence was broken by a familiar voice from inside. "Well, stop gawking at each other and close the damn door!"

Nanna Bell was an impressive woman. She was nearing seventy-five now but time had done nothing but enhance her strength. She seemed completely unbreakable. Her hair was a steely grey colour which matched her silvery eyes and she approached the doorway with her noticeable limp. She of course refused the cane she had been instructed to use, telling the specialist that she had been through so much in her decades of living and was old enough to tell him to fuck off without feeling bad about it. Which she then proceeded to do. Dave had a big soft spot for his only living grandparent.

The doorway was soon closed as requested and the family moved to the dining room. The pale blue walls were decorated with tasteful paintings and a few floral arrangements. Nanna trooped to the chair at the head of the table before plonking herself down and glaring at the rest, daring them to try to get her to move. She raised her hand, indicating the remaining chairs and the three Karofsky members sat down on one side of the table and Lawrence sat on the other side, opposite his sister. They almost immediately resumed their staring match.

With a pointed look from Nanna, Paul cleared his throat and introduced Dave to his Uncle. The two shook hands over the table and resumed their seats. "Hi," Dave broke the ice, which he thought was rather brave. "Mum tells me that you're a lawyer?" It was one of his father's pointers that there were three great places to start a conversation. Family, work and hobbies. Clearly family was a bit redundant and Dave had no idea what his uncle would do for fun. Work seemed the obvious place to begin.

"Yes," the man looked at Dave with a smile. It lightened his features causing him to look years younger. "My partner and I, Jeremy, co-founded the firm _Bell & Curry_. Speaking of which, JERRY!" yelled Lawrie, in an attempt to obtain his partner's attention. This gained a glare from Nanna and a rather sheepish look from her son in return.

A few moments later, a chocolate coloured man waltzed in with a flamboyant air. He swooped down on his husband with a kiss causing his partner to blush. "Jerry!" he chastised. Lawrie glanced ashamedly at his sister but noticing her lack of hostility his face brightened. "You have changed." The statement caused the pair to smile at each other. Even Nanna let a rare smile grace her lips. The moment she had been waiting for had finally come to pass.

Within moments, Sarah had dashed from one side of the table to the other and hugged the brother she had neglected tightly. As they dissolved into tears and hushed apologies from both parties, Paul introduced Dave to Jerry. It was difficult to keep up a conversation with the reunited siblings wailing in the background but they did well enough. Dave decided that he really liked the man, even if he was an avid basketball fan. At least he went for sports. Take that damn gay stereotype! After a brief but intense discussion about the Lakers and the Jazz, Jerry excused himself. "I'll fetch our daughter so we can begin our dinner."

"Daughter?" asked Dave once Jerry had slipped down the hallway.

Paul nodded. "Evelyn," Paul gestured toward Nanna, "told us years ago that Lawrie and Jerry had adopted a baby girl but that was the only time we heard about it. In fact, I'd forgotten she existed. She's probably about your age."

Dave waited patiently for Jerry to return as the siblings had now turned to hushed conversations instead of their previous emotional outbursts. He couldn't believe it. He had a cousin! His father was an only child and up until recently he'd thought the same of his mother. It was like a fairytale. He'd always wanted a brother or sister but was destined to grow up alone. Azimio was the closest thing he had to a brother and that had turned out so damn well. If his cousin had two gay dad's she'd have to be sympathetic to his plight, wouldn't she?

A loud screaming snapped his attention to the opposite side of the room. A brunette girl was pointing at him with a shocked and angry expression, still shrieking away. Everyone's attention was now only upon her. Jerry covered her mouth with his hand and began to talk quietly to her but her eyes remained fixed on Dave. "I can't believe you let that trash into our home," spluttered the girl with disgust.

"Princess!" exclaimed Lawrie. "That's no way to speak to your cousin."

As if she had forgotten this little titbit of information, the girl's eyes widened in realisation before she tore out of the room crying.

There was a strong silence in her wake and Dave felt everyone's eyes on him. The only exception was Jerry who had followed his daughter to the doorway of her room and was trying to coax her back out to the dinner table. "Erm," he began with no real goal in sight.

After a very pregnant pause which even Nanna was reluctant to fill, Jerry returned. He looked at Dave with confusion. "She said she wouldn't return unless David was gone."

Dave rose to his feet ignoring the protests from Lawrie, Paul and Nanna. "Look," he interrupted them. "The main reason for this dinner was for Mum to reconnect with her brother. That's more important right now so I'll just drive home, munch out and just call me when you're ready to go, okay?"

Sarah looked torn between defending her son's right to be there and letting him go so she could spend more time with her brother.

Nanna Bell nodded at her grandson with a sharp look. "That's very noble of you David."

With a smile to his grandmother, a quick, "Nice to meet you both," to his new uncles and a brief look at his parents, Dave made for the car as fast as common courtesy allowed. He sped home via Burger King and it was only when he reached the safety of his bedroom did he allow the sucktacularness of the situation to sink in. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever imagine he'd have Rachel Berry for a cousin.


	7. Malagueña Salerosa

_Heya._

_Here's the next instalment. Yes, it took forever but I blame it on life - visiting relies, brief holidays and then visiting friends. I think I also may need a holiday from my holiday. Anywho, as usual this is totally unbeta'd as I'm too lazy to care that much about being 100% correct. Schmeh. Although when I was re-reading the previous chaps, I noticed a few things that needed fixing so I apologise for the couple of alerts you may soon receive in advance. Despite being lazy, I'm still a bit OCD and when I notice something, I'll generally change it._

_Thanks reviewers, faves etc. Yes, I __did__ make Rachel his cousin. I thought the fact that Dave had a gay married uncle who was also a lawyer made it rather obvious but then again I knew where this debacle was headed... I guarantee that if you go over the earlier chapters again that you'll probably find other hints as to what the future holds._

_Hope you like this one, Jace._

* * *

**_Malagueña Salerosa_**

Wednesday started off slowly. Just like the bear Dave was starting to accept himself as, the overcast weather made him wish he could hibernate. He snoozed his alarm several times before dragging his sorry ass out of bed. The revelation of Rachel Berry was still yet to fully sink in but maybe he could talk to Miss P about it when he'd see her this afternoon.

Max took him to school via Starbucks where liquid caffeine was necessary. The coffee braced his being for another excruciating day at McKinley. The jocks eyed him warily as he passed by them. Perhaps the pink shirt he wore yesterday still warded them away. He looked down at his charcoal grey polo and back up again to receive a red slushie to the face. With a sigh, he trudged to the closest bathroom to clean himself up, mentally cursing the random footballer for his good aim. Luckily, he still had a green shirt in his bag from yesterday when he thought his pink one would last only seconds.

He pulled off his half-drenched shirt and began to wash his face. The door sounded and Dave paused in his task to notice Kurt had entered the bathroom. Instead of the cutting _shouldn't you be in the girl's bathroom?_ he would have normally asked, an unbidden comment slid out of his mouth. "Hummell, we really have to stop meeting like this. What will everyone else think?" Dave tried to stop the blush that threatened to colour his skin but only partially succeeded. Was he flirting? With Hummell? Holy shit!

It was the second time in two days that Dave witnessed Kurt's mouth wide open with shock but this time he was fully able to appreciate it. A sliver of his pink tongue was visible and the thoughts of what it could do to him caused his body to warm. Kurt's wide green eyes stared back in horror. It caused Dave to chuckle quietly.

"Are you going to gape at me all day or are you going to put your mouth to better use?" Dave asked cheekily as he turned his body to face the elfin-like singer. Hell this was fun! If he knew that teasing him would get him these sorts of reactions, he would never have physically bullied in the first place.

Kurt's mouth flew closed faster than a rampaging rhino but Dave did notice that his eyes snatched a quick look at his still uncovered chest. "WHAT!" he shrieked with indignant rage. "HOW DARE YOU! You, you, you..." he trailed off. Apparently he was so angry that he couldn't form a sentence. It made Dave smirk.

"Devilishly charming hunk?" supplied Dave as he tried to stop himself from bursting into laughter. This was priceless.

Once again Kurt was shocked into silence. He looked like he was suffering from an aneurysm. Dave had almost managed to pull out his phone to take a picture of his face but Hummell must have realised what he was planning and sent him a withering glare. "One week and you think you have your sexual orientation all worked out, hmm?" he asked scathingly as he quickly glanced down toward Dave's jeans. "You wouldn't even know what to do with it," he announced dismissively.

Dave shrugged his shoulders. "According to _Boys who like Boys_, there's usually a top and bottom. The top starts by inserting..."

"KAROFSKY!" interrupted Kurt in an ear-splitting tone. "I know about all of that already, I don't need you giving me a blow by blow account."

Dave snickered but refrained from commenting on the numerous blowjob jokes he could make and from the startled look that passed over Kurt's face he realised exactly what he was giggling about. "Grow up you obtuse, overbearing, brainless thug." With that the diva stormed from the bathroom without a backward glance.

After he had donned his clean shirt and made sure there was no slushie residue, Dave made his way to homeroom and got there just in time. He zoned out and relived the bathroom encounter in his head. His attitude and demeanour had completely thrown Hummell. It was so fun.

Dave submitted his fully completed geometry homework to Mr Blyth who seemed more than a little alarmed that he had bothered to do it. English was even more surreal. He completed his essay with almost fifteen minutes to spare. Since he was becoming bored waiting for the time to pass, he completed the small portion of geo homework that he had left over from the previous class.

"Detention, Mr Karofsky," snarled Ms Whitfield.

Dave was startled from his train of thought and jumped in his seat. "What? Why?"

"Did you think I wouldn't notice that you're completing work for another subject? I don't care how much you need to know the volume of a square-based pyramid, now is not the time for it." The thin, blonde woman sneered at him.

"I already finished the essay," Dave replied with barely concealed anger.

"Really?" snorted Ms Whitfield. "Prove it."

Dave grabbed his English book from his bag, flicked to the page and handed it over. Despite the fact he was furious, he only had two more questions to go on his geo homework and barely a minute to go. He forced his concentration on the last two problems and just completed them in time for the bell.

"Leave your books on my desk on the way out. Anyone who doesn't will experience my displeasure along with some detentions. You are forewarned," the teacher snarked as the students beat a hasty retreat.

Dave quickly put his fully complete homework away and packed up as he impatiently waited for Ms Whitfield to finish reading his work.

"Mr Karofsky. Not bad. You may go." The teacher imperiously handed back the book, turned on her heel and marched back to her desk. It was the nicest thing Ms Whitfield had ever said to him. Not that it was high praise but compared to her usual cutting remarks, it was a nice change.

Placing the book back into his bag, Dave hurriedly made his way to his usual table in the library. He sat down and started munching on his PB&J sandwiches that he'd made for lunch. Since he had already completed all of his geo and English work, Dave took the time to think about Ms Walter's sculpture question. He had art after Spanish and hadn't really considered the question yet.

Would the Statue of Liberty look better if it were painted? Well wasn't some of it already painted? The torch was partly golden but would she look better with a coat of paint? An image of a jewel-encrusted, tiara-wearing red head sporting a blue velvet ball gown sprang to mind and he found it more than a little offensive. It looked something like Lady Liberty was a very drunk drag queen, on cocaine. Ew. What about Mount Rushmore? If it was painted the colours of the founders it would be more accurate but some of its appeal would likely disappear. In fact the stark whiteness of the sculpture was part of the reason it's so well known. Paints would only take away from it.

Dave felt he'd begun to understand exactly what Miss Walters was on about. The purpose of a sculpture lay in the construction of it, not in the colouring. If he wanted to get his idea across, he'd have to make sure it was more pronounced in the claywork, not the paintwork. By increasing and slightly distorting the rippling effect on his lotus, the elemental idea could be reinforced without the need for extra paint. In fact, he could adopt the idea of using colours to highlight certain aspects instead of clinging to realism. Perhaps he had the potential take his artwork to a higher level than he had originally conceived.

When Dave'd suffered through another boring Spanish lesson (why did he HAVE to learn Spanish for fuck's sake?) he applied his theories to his clay creation. He managed to increase the intensity of his ripples to such a state that the lotus blossom looked like it had been submerged under water instead of the shaky style it had previously been. Miss Walters gushed over his alterations so he decided that waiting the extra couple of days was well worth it.

Dave added his lotus to the small collection of clay to be fired in the school kiln and snagged a new pile of clay. His next flower was going to be a rose who's petals would individually morph into flames. He painstakingly began the process of creating his rose and lost himself in the task. The radio Miss Walters was quietly playing in the background still managed to successfully fill the room, muffling the soft squishes of moulding clay and mutterings from random students.

_Que bonitos ojos tienes debajo de esas dos cejas. Debajo de esas dos cejas que bonitos ojos tienes.  
__(What pretty eyes you have under those two eyebrows. Under those two eyebrows what pretty eyes you have.)_

_Malagueña salerosa. Besar tus labios quisiera. Besar tus labios quisiera. Malagueña salerosa y decirte niña hermosa.  
(__Rose leaves of Malaga. To kiss your wanted lips. To kiss your wanted lips. Rose leaves of Malaga and telling you, beautiful girl...)_

_Que eres linda y hechicera, que eres linda y hechicera como el candor de una rosa.  
(__That you are pretty and magical, that you are pretty and magical as the innocence of a rose.)_

At first Dave was confused as to why the words were so weirdly phrased. It wasn't until a few moments had passed that he realised that the song was in Spanish. Huh, perhaps he had learnt something in that boring wasteland of Schuster's class. The song sounded far better in Spanish than English. That was for sure.

After Dave had carefully stored his half finished sculpture at the conclusion of his class, he slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way toward Miss P's fishbowl of an office. She smiled vampiricly at him as he squished himself into the chair opposite her.

"David," chirped the ginger cheerfully. "How was your day today?"

"Well, I, um, got slushied but after that it was, er, really good I suppose," rambled Dave a little disjointedly.

"Well, that's good," beamed Miss P. "So do you have anything you'd like to tell me today?"

Dave briefly considered telling her about the who bathroom incident with Kurt but thought he'd probably rather die from ingesting a year's supply of haggis than recount that particular story. Instead he narrated the Rachel Berry Is Now My Cousin story from last night. Emma's eyes widened comically when he reached the climax of the tale and she seemed shocked into silence.

The reprieve lasted only a few moments. "Am I to understand that Rachel Berry is your cousin and you had no knowledge of this until now?"

Dave nodded before reminding her about his new uncles which they had been discussing on Monday.

Emma's face turned from confusion to a slight frown. "She did not seem to take the news well."

"That's gotta be the understatement of the millennium, Miss P. I thought she would run outside to the shed to grab a pitchfork to chase me out with." In hindsight, it must have been a huge shock for the diva as well but he had been far too busy freaking out to worry about her feelings. Well it wasn't as shocking as her screaming. Now that was scary.

"Maybe I should have a few words to her about it," mused Emma aloud.

A look of horror stole over Dave's face. "Better you than me, Miss P. She'd probably try to murder me if I tried to talk to her anytime soon."

"You're probably right," acquiesced the guidance councillor.

The session concluded not long after and Dave journeyed back to his house. "Mum, Dad, I'm home," he hollered from the doorway. There was no response. He dropped off his bag in his bedroom before entering the kitchen. A hasty note was taped to the fridge.

_Davey,_

_Your father and I have gone to visit Lawrie and Jerry. We still have a lot to catch up on. I made some lasagne for dinner and left it in the fridge in case you got hungry. I'm not sure when we'll get back._

_Love you. Mum._

Dave reheated his dinner and scarfed it down before chilling on HALO for a few hours. He chatted with Blaine as he and _RaspBerrY SurPrisE_ absolutely carved up the competition. Only one lone player on the other team seemed to be a little decent and that was _SueCeesIt_. The player was rather talented with sniper rifles but couldn't hold up to the awesomeness of the _Rasp-Fury_ combo.

When Dave noticed the time was way past ten, he logged off, checked his facebook, showered, brushed his teeth and slunk into bed. His parents had yet to return but the lull of sleep was too strong and he was soon dead to the world in a barrage of snores.


	8. Moves Like Jagger

_Hi there._

_I've been lazy (too busy reading and not writing - I know - bad Jace, no biscuit!) and finally got my arse back into gear for another chappie. As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. It's nice to know that people like my work._

_Here's to chapter eight, I hope it lives up to your expectations. Jace._

* * *

**_Moves Like Jagger_**

The next couple of the weeks passed by rather uneventfully, which Dave considered to be a blessing. Sure he was slushied regularly (three times a week) but he hadn't been tossed into the dumpster once. He'd avoided Zim, Kurt, Rachel and Coach Sylvester easily since his new tendency to spend lunch in the library kept him well out of the school's way.

The topic of Jordan was a strange one. They hadn't spoken since the whole rescuing Kurt incident but he also didn't seem to be assaulting him at school either. Dave found it rather confusing. Maybe Zim did too. The thought of dropping by his house had been in the back of his mind lately.

Kurt had spent the last two weeks glaring him down at every possible interval. The glares also seemed to be growing in intensity. It might have had something to do with that time he winked at him as he passed by or that time where he brushed Kurt's leg with his own when they were forced to sit next to each other in Spanish last Thursday. Oh well. Dave was still texting and meeting up with Blaine. He was just waiting for Kurt to make that little discovery. A diva fit was guaranteed.

Rachel was another matter entirely. A good portion of last week, Dave had been practically living at her house. It wasn't to see her though, it was to spend time with his new uncles. Lawry was freaking awesome. He was smart and always ready to give a little useful advice. Jerry's advice however was usually not as useful but always entertaining. Of the two, he was the one with a wicked sense of humour. Getting to know them was a blast. The only problem was of course their daughter. Whenever Rachel entered the room and Dave was there she would immediately head toward her room and slam the door. Lawry had spoken sternly and threatened her. Jerry tried bribery and guilt but the gleek steadfastly refused to speak to her long-lost cousin. Dave was pretty certain that if their roles were reversed, that he'd probably do exactly the same thing.

One coach Sue Sylvester does not take no for an answer. Ever. Which is how Dave found himself in precarious position. If he had known she would do this to him since his outing and resignation from the football team, he'd have kept playing. The neurotic woman worked it out with a simple equation. Gay ex-footballer plus injured lifter equals replacement Cheerio. Shit. Great, so now he was starting to resemble the gay stereotype. Plus the bitch had somehow blackmailed him into wearing the Cheerio uniform every day he had a practice.

As for school itself, his marks had skyrocketed. Ms Whitfield actually gave him a B on his last essay and Mr Blyth left a note on his homework congratulating him on his improvement. Dave had a feeling this was an attempt to guilt him into confessing that he'd been cheating. Pity for Mr Blyth that he wasn't. As for art, he had completed the fire rose and was almost done with his latest flower - a dandelion. This was the trickiest one yet. The stem was bent as if it were being blown in a strong breeze and the umbrella-like seeds were starting to disperse. It had taken him ages to create the little seeds and attach them to the body of the sculpture but the end result was fantastic. One more to go and he could start painting them.

Dave finished getting ready for school as fast as humanly possible. Since he had Cheerio practice this afternoon, he unwillingly donned his hideous uniform and packed his lunch. Within moments he was sitting in Max hoping that Tuesday would be over soon. It was his least favourite day of the week.

Instead of driving to school, he headed in the opposite direction. He pulled up in front of a quaint suburban house with a green, well-maintained lawn. He opened the door and leapt from his seat. Whistling tunelessly as he approached the door, he knocked and waited for some kind of response.

The door was opened abruptly by a short, yet severe-looking woman. Upon seeing Dave's face, hers split into a wide grin. Before he knew what was going on, she had gathered him up in a large hug. "Dave, it's been so long! How are you?"

Dave smiled back. "I'm well, Miss A."

She looked him up and down. "It looks like you've lost a bit of weight lately."

Blushing at her scrutiny, Dave agreed. "Yeah. I used to think that football would keep me fit but really it's just running and a bit of tackling. Every practice with Coach Sylvester feels like army boot camp. I've been hurting in places I never knew existed."

Mrs Azimio nodded. "She is a little scary, that one. I'm so glad you're here. Jordy's been sulking in his room for weeks."

"Really?" blinked Dave.

For the first time since they had been talking, the smile slid from her face. "I'm so sorry for how much of a dick he's been."

Dave spluttered. He'd forgotten how blunt she could be. Before he could reply, the woman ploughed on and started ranting.

"I never thought for one moment that I'd raised a homophone until Mrs Jackson was on the phone. You know, Steven's mother? Apparently they painted your car pink." She paused momentarily to confirm the rumour by looking at the SUV. "When I got into him about it later, he told me about the slushies and throwing you into the dumpster. Ooh, I was so angry. If Harvey was still alive, God rest his poor soul, I'm sure he would have belted him. God loves all of His people. I thought I raised him better than that."

Dave inelegantly gaped at the woman who was now heaving large breaths.

"Mum?" queried the voice of my ex-best friend. His head appeared from the shadows of the interior of the house, hovering over his mother's short form. "What's gotten you into..." He trailed off as he finally noticed who she was talking to. Without another word, he turned and began to retreat back into the house.

"DON'T YOU DARE, JORDAN EZEKIEL AZIMIO! YOU TROT YOUR FAT BLACK ARSE BACK OUT HERE, RIGHT NOW."

Dave grimaced in sympathy as Zim skulked back into view.

Jordan's mother looked at Dave, who shrunk back a little. "If he's rude or nasty to you, let me know." With that said she turned around and left the two boys alone, a long silence remained between them.

Zim cleared his throat, gaining Dave's full attention. "Er. Hi."

The Cheerio blinked before wryly smiling. "That's it? Pure genius."

"Aw, shuddup man." It was like the last few weeks had never happened. The awkward strangeness between them began to dissipate. "Alright, I'm frickin sorry, dude. I was just so angry and hurt."

"Hurt?" yelped Dave. "What the hell hurt you? You weren't the one who discovered he likes cock. Yeah that was me and the one friend I thought I'd still have was the first to attack me. That fucking hurt."

"Well, how the hell did you think I felt?" retorted Zim. "I found out from a gleek that my boy was a closet case. Why didn't you ever tell me yourself? We've known each other since the first fucking grade. I could've been there for ya, man."

Dave rolled his eyes. "Like you were there for me when it came to it? By throwing slushies in my face?"

"Like I said, man, it hurt."

"Not as much as it..."

"Would you just shut the fuck up so I can apologise for being a complete pussy of a friend?" Zim interrupted. When Dave stood staring open-mouthed at him, Zim took that as compliance. "Look. I was stupid. I was too busy freaking out that I was a complete arsehole and I'm sorry, dude. I should've been there, helping you out instead of making it worse. It wasn't until mum tore me to strips that I stepped back and actually thought about it all."

Dave looked contemplatively at his friend. "Was that when you stopped picking on me and started pretending I didn't exist?"

With a frown on his face, Zim replied. "Hey. I knew I had to stop being a fucktard but I still hadn't worked out how I was going to deal with it all."

In a soft voice, Dave asked, "So, how are you going to deal with it?"

Zim extended his hand. "Friends?" he asked the same way he did all those years ago.

Dave accepted the hand and they had a quick bro hug. Dave mercifully ignored how tense Zim's muscles were. Zim excused himself, said goodbye to his mother, grabbed his school gear and the two piled into Max.

"So," began Zim as Dave started the car. "You kissed Hummel?" The interrogation began. By the time they had gotten to McKinley, Zim was up to date with what was going on with Dave and had even found time to mock him for becoming a Cheerio.

Dave had a feeling that school today was going to be a little different. He was proven correct when the pair arrived at school and Zim slushied the guy that slushied Dave yesterday. "Anyone else wanna mess with my boy?" yelled Zim to the cafeteria at large. There was a deafening silence in response. "I didn't think so."

The pair walked to a bathroom and Dave cleaned himself up quickly. As he led Zim into the library, the dark-skinned teen looked around warily. He hadn't set foot in there since that rather unfortunate experience involving _A Beginner's Guide To Elementary Chemical Reactions_, three eggs, a lighter, a rubber chicken and a beaker of sulphuric acid. Dave directed the boy to his usual table and began munching on his packed lunch.

"I still can't believe you were hiding out here all this time. I did go looking for you, you know," Zim glowered around the room.

Dave shrugged. "That's what I was afraid of." He pulled out his latest history assignment and began writing a brief summary of the life of Abraham Lincoln. He finished it in no time.

A Spanish and English class later, Dave snarkily made his way to the auditorium for his Cheerio practice. In all honestly, it was quite fun when they were performing the routines. Unfortunately, Drill Sargent Sylvester preferred alternative methods. There were laps of the room (or of the school if she was feeling really pissy) push ups, sit ups, squats, jumping jacks and the like before she even tried to work on the routines. Today was full of all of them.

Then came the practice lifts. This was the part he dreaded. Coach required her Cheerio lifters to hold a practice dummy over their head for ten minutes before any real lifting was to occur. Even then, lifting the likes of Santana Lopez was not what he would consider fun. She had become bitch queen extraordinaire ever since she was demoted to the bottom of the pyramid. Add that to the fact that a lot of the lifts required his hands being near her butt or (shudder) the dreaded vagina, he prayed that it would all be over soon.

"Alright, listen up." Barked Coach through her megaphone. Dave gratefully tossed Santana on the floor and let his muscles relax (amidst her Spanish mutterings) for a moment. "We're running nationals from the top. If you don't wow me more than a one-armed, hand-standing, chocolate-coated midget, I'll personally kick all of your asses on next Monday's assembly before calling in Homeland Security to take you all away. Do it. NOW!" After a pause while the Cheerios resumed their opening places and waited, Coach started to lose her temper. "BECKY, START THE DAMN MUSIC."

"Yes, Coach," Becky skipped off.

The Cheerios moved in time with the music and Dave flipped Santana over before hoisting her into the air. It was almost like dancing. In some ways Dave figured this was probably quite similar to that damn Glee club. They had to learn moves too. At least they didn't have to randomly shout "Go McKinley" as they performed them. Dave found that part weird.

_And it goes like this_

_Take me by the tongue and I'll know you  
Kiss me 'til you're drunk and I'll show you all the moves like Jagger  
I've got the moves like Jagger, I've got the moves like Jagger_

_I don't need to try to control you  
Look into my eyes and I'll own you with them moves like Jagger  
I've got the moves like Jagger, I've got the moves like Jagger_

Sometimes during the routines, Dave felt like he had moves like Jagger. Maybe it was something he didn't actually suck at. The routine drew to a close and the Cheerios waited in anticipation.

The megaphone screeched a little before Coach began. "I've seen zombies perform with more life. Get out, you all disgust me." Dave retreated quickly in case she changed her mind and spent a few hours chilling with Zim. They played HALO (of course) and for the first time in weeks, Dave felt genuinely happy.


	9. That's What Friends Are For

_Heya!_

_So here's the next chappie. Life's been hectic so I'm surprised I actually managed to fit it in._

_As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. Hope you like it. _

_Jace._

* * *

**_That's What Friends Are For_**

Life for Dave had taken a definite turn for the better since he and Zim rekindled their friendship. He was completely left alone by the idiots on the football team. Apparently, Zim went (as Santana would say) "All Lima Heights on their asses," and had already beaten up three dicks for making fun of him during practice last week. Funnily enough, when they complained to Coach Beiste and she found out exactly what they'd said, she gave each one of them a couple of solid body punches. When the fools said they'd take the matter to Principal Figgins, she laughed in their faces. "You're football players and any bruises you've gotten today you probably got on the practice field."

Coach Sylvester's Cheerio practices had gotten even more gruelling but Dave could finally see the benefits of the punishment. Last night as he was drying off after his shower he noticed his flab was virtually gone. He was the fittest he'd been since elementary school. At this rate, he might even get some abs, a lifelong dream he'd never thought would come to fruition.

It was a Wednesday which meant he had geometry first. Mr Blyth began with a different approach to usual. Instead of droning uselessly from the front and then setting a chapter of questions from their textbook to complete, he waited impatiently for the class to settle. When he had their undivided attention (well, as best as he could with a room of hormonal teenagers) he drew up a question on the board. He went through the roll and each class member had to solve a problem on the board at the front of the room. Nobody complained because as long as they were quiet, they only needed to think for about a minute instead of the majority of the lesson. A fair trade off.

Dave took great delight in smashing his problem almost immediately. With a smirk, he handed the whiteboard marker back to the teacher and sauntered to his seat. Mr Blyth's mouth was open. He'd finally seen proof that David Karofsky wasn't a bumbling idiot. The realisation that he'd probably been completing his homework himself must have finally hit home. The teacher blushed when he was brought back to Earth by Mike Chang who was sitting in the front row of seats.

English was productive (although it was more boring than one of Berry's lengthy monologues) as he spent the lesson working on his stupid poetry anthology. Who the hell cared about haikus anyway? five sounds, seven sounds and five again - boring! Since he'd fulfilled the required number of lame poems with twenty minutes to spare, he wrote a few haikus for his friends just for shits and giggles.

_Jordy's a great friend  
He makes me laugh all the time  
He's super dumb - not!_

_Unexpected mate  
I never thought he'd like me  
Blaine is amazing._

_Lawrie and Jerry  
My two new uncles are great  
I love them a lot._

His haikus were starting to get mushy and there was still ten minutes left. Seriously? With a smirk, he wrote one more. Predictably, Ms Whitfield asked for volunteers to read some of their work to the class in the last few minutes. For the first time ever, Dave raised his hand to volunteer. With a suspicious look, she gave him the floor.

Dave moved to the front of the room. "So I finished my poems ages ago so I wrote a couple of extra ones. This is one of my haikus." He scuffed the floor a little with his shoe. He wasn't one for public speaking but couldn't help himself, he desperately wanted to see the teacher's reaction to his poem. With a little trepidation, he recited it to the class.

_"This lesson is shit  
You're killing me Ms Whitfield  
Why torture me, skank?"_

The class sat in shock for a few moments before bursting out in rapturous applause. Dave exaggeratedly bowed to the class before turning his eyes upon his teacher's. "That surprisingly followed the correct format," she announced in her severe tone but Dave swore she looked like she was smothering a smile.

Recess was spent helping Zim with his poetry assignment. After he'd pointed out a few syllabic errors, he showed him the poem he'd written about him. Zim laughed at the last line before smacking him on the head for calling him dumb. Dave made the mistake of claiming it was true which caused the pair to start a slapping match. Unsurprisingly, Jordy won.

It was in Spanish that the strangest thing occurred. Mr Schuster set them to do partner work, something about conjugating verbs or some crap like that when he called Dave up to the front of the room. With a frown, Dave made his way to the teacher's desk and sat in the chair indicated. Their conversation was purely in Spanish.

**Hello David, how are you?** asked Mr Schu.

**I'm okay,** replied Dave warily.

**Are you able to come to glee club this afternoon?**

Dave almost fell off the chair. **I don't want to be in glee club, Mr Schuster.**

Mr Schu blinked. **That's not what I meant. I have someone who wants you to watch their performance, so consider yourself an invited guest. No obligations, no tricks. Just a visit.**

This caused Dave to wonder why someone would want him to be there of all places. He couldn't think of anyone at McKinley who would want that. Not Rachel or Kurt for sure. He didn't really know any of the others except for Puck and Santana. He couldn't imagine either of them singing a song for him. It just felt wrong. A clearing of a throat brought him back to the present. **Oh, erm, sure. I'll be there.**

Dave was treated to the white gleam of Mr Schu's perfectly straight teeth. **Excellent, I'll see you then.** With that said, Dave meandered back to his seat and winced as he tried to converse with Sally Reaves, the second dumbest Cheerio. Of course Brit was the dumbest but at least she endearing, Sally was anything but.

The last flower for his art project was coming along nicely. It was a sunflower. He was yet to add the details of cracked Earth to make it look like it had been baked in the sun but that would happen in the next lesson or two. He did find it difficult to work on his art project with the random glee rehearsal he was attending later on his mind. It was still puzzling him. He'd already texted Zim to let him know what was going on and Zim had no idea who was behind it either.

The bell pulled Dave from his thoughts and he hastily cleaned up under Miss Walters' watchful eye. The hippie-like teacher made no comment about his rare inattention. He supposed it was one of the perks of being liked by his teacher.

Dave took a shuddering breath as he gently edged the door to the choir room open. He peeked in and saw the gleeks sitting in the stands. The first person he noticed was of course Hummel who was chatting animatedly with Mercedes. Brit and Santana were whispering to each other as Lauren glared at Sam in disgust, Puck's eyes on her face with a puppy-like expression. Tina and Mike were catching a quick snog up the back which Quinn was dutifully ignoring, even though her cheeks were a light pink colour. Artie was of course on the ground floor next to Finn who was listening with a very glazed expression to Rachel who was ranting about exactly which solo she was going to sing later that week.

It wasn't until he'd edged halfway into the room that he realised Mr Schu wasn't there. It was at that moment that a shriek he'd only heard once before echoed through the room, causing everyone's attention to land on one Rachel Berry. "You, you, complete imbecile!" she seethed.

Chaos reined supreme as many voices all began shouting at once. None of them seemed pleased to see him, which was to be expected but for some reason it still hurt. It was one thing to be rejected by the popular kids but another thing entirely to be rejected by the rejects themselves. Ouch.

When the glee club finally realised that everyone was talking at once, they all stopped.

Naturally it was Kurt who spoke up first, "What the hell are you doing here, Neanderthal?"

Before Dave could open his mouth, Mercedes cut in. "The hell you are standing in our choir room. Nu uh, this is the one place you can't be, white boy."

"AS IF IT WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH THAT I'M RELATED TO YOU, NOW YOU HAVE TO STALK ME TOO?" burst out Rachel before she could control herself. The rest of the glee club stared at her in horror.

"You're re-related to him?" gasped Tina aloud with a genuine stutter.

"Well," huffed the soprano. "It's not like I want to be. He's my cousin." Her mouth curled into a hideous snarl. "I only found out a couple of weeks ago."

Silence reigned supreme until the sound of the door pulled their attention to Mr Schu, who was late once again. "Sorry guys..." he began to apologise before Rachel cut him off.

"Mr Schuster, we have an unwelcome fiend in our presence and I will not let this practice begin with him in the vicinity."

Mr Schu looked around the room and spotted Dave who was failing miserably at trying to make himself less noticeable. "Well that's too bad Rachel. I personally invited him to be here."

"But..." began Rachel.

Mr Schu cut her off. "This is not up for discussion, Rachel." She glared at the man but remained silent. "Please, take a seat, David."

Dave hastily sat as far away as he could from the glee club and turned his attention to Mr Schu.

"Alright, now Regionals are almost upon us and an old colleague of mine thought both of our preparations could benefit from a joint workshop. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me present, the Warblers." Mr Schu gestured to the door which burst open with a horde of boys spilling into the room. They waved and catcalled as they filled the remaining seats.

Blaine smiled at Dave as he sat next to him. "So it was you!" exclaimed Dave in happiness.

"Yep, wanted it to be a surprise so I got Mr Schuster to get you here." He flashed his charming smile.

"Blaine!" exclaimed Kurt with an almost painful enthusiasm. "How are you? Why haven't you responded to my texts?"

Blaine's smile slid from his face as his overlarge eyebrows furrowed. Kurt's expression dimmed at the dramatic change. "I didn't respond because I have no intention of talking to you."

Kurt's eyes bugged out. "Why?" he asked in a squeaky tone.

"I would have thought it would be obvious but I must have overestimated your intelligence." Blaine's voice was cutting to say the very least. "I have no intention of spending any time with a boy who would out another, no matter the circumstances. You should be ashamed of yourself. You must surely remember how you felt being out at this bigoted school yet you forced another into the same predicament. I will never show you the time of day. Ever."

Hummel looked almost ready to cry. Mr Schu brought the room's attention to himself and he invited Blaine to take the stage. As Blaine stood, he grabbed Dave's hand and forcefully dragged him to the front of the room, despite his protests.

Blaine nodded to the audience. "I met Dave online while we were playing HALO a few weeks ago and since then we've become close friends. I feel it's safe to say I know the real David Karofsky a lot better than anyone else in the room. We've laughed, cried, singstared and even had a few beers together..."

"As if you could call those Manhattans a beer," interjected Dave, causing the warblers and a couple of gleeks to chuckle.

"Anyway," Blaine snapped cheerfully. "I want you to sing with me, well us." Blaine gestured toward his schoolmates.

Before Dave could protest, the band started up and Blaine began to sing.

_I never thought I'd feel this way. Well you came and opened me,  
And now there's so much more I see, and so by the way, I thank you._

Blaine signalled to Dave who was smiling despite his best efforts not to. It was one of their regular singstar songs. It was mushy, cheesy and they both loved it. Despite the fact that his voice was much less than perfect, Dave continued the song while Blaine watched proudly by his side.

_And then for the times when we're apart. Well, then close your eyes and know,  
These words are coming from my heart, and then if you can remember._

The pair threw a casual arm around each other and the warblers joined in with their manly harmonies as they both sang the chorus together.

_Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me,  
For sure. That's what friends are for.  
In good times and bad times. I'll be on your side forevermore.  
That's what friends are for._

They repeated the chorus and Dave was startled to realise three things. The first was he was crying. Happily, but crying nonetheless. The second was that the majority of the gleeks had also joined in and the third was that one of them was Rachel frickin' Berry who also had tears in her eyes. Did he really sing that horribly?

Either way, when the song came to an end the room erupted into cheers and gleeks and warblers alike were hugging each other with happiness.

Blaine smiled at Dave. "You'll always be a friend, Dave. Whether you want me to be or not. Don't forget it."

"I won't," answered Dave through his tears, a happy smile stretching his face. They shared a quick, friendly hug.

The only person not basking in the happy feel of the room was Kurt Hummel. His eyes were narrowed at the two boys at the front of the room. He was not happy, Jan. Not happy at all. Something had to be done about this.


	10. Yellow

_G'day!_

_So here's the latest chapter. Apologies for how long it took but I got sucked into the fandom of Harry Potter and actually finished a fic. Then I went away for a holiday. I know, excuses, excuses, but in the end at least I continued the freaking story!_

_As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. Hope it lives up to your expectations._

_Jace._

* * *

**_Yellow_**

The day after Blaine's appearance at McKinley went well (even though he had Bio with Mr Porter - the ass) until Cheerio practice, that was when things started getting interesting. It all started with Santana. He'd finally finished his seventieth lift (damn Coach Sylvester's a fucking hoe) when the Latina announced, "Hey? What's the hobbit doing here?" Since Dave was too busy concentrating on keeping the girl airborne, he paid little attention until he heard the hobbit reply.

"I'm here to see my c-cousin."

The unexpected sound of Rachel Berry's voice caused Dave to fumble and land Santana with a one way trip in an ambulance to the hospital. He was still unsure which one was scarier, Coach Sylvester who was equating his uselessness to rabid vegetarian piranhas or Santana who called him many unpleasant things in Spanish. The things he understood made him cringe and the things he couldn't scared him even more.

Thankfully, Rachel made the mistake of trying to apologise to Coach Sylvester. All focus was off Dave as the full force of the beefcake pounding, ice snorting Coach of the award winning, record slashing, kiss my ass you skanky glee pop princess of complete lameness, you filthy hobo, Sylvester hit Rachel in the face. Literally. The spittle practically caked her overlarge nose by the end of the tirade. At least the Coach was then spent and dismissed her Cheerios who ran out of there as fast a humanly possible.

With the gymnasium devoid of life with the exception of Coach Sylvester, Rachel, Dave and Becky, the domineering woman stalked off to her gym bag as she muttered unintelligible threats. She angrily unzipped the bag and rooted through it before pulling a slightly rumpled cheerio outfit. Coach threw it fast and Rachel somehow managed to catch it before it could smack her in the face. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the irate woman.

"You owe me Princess. If it weren't for your banshee-like voice and this floundering lummox," she pointed in Dave's direction who barely suppressed a scream, "I'd still have a pyramid support. You may be a singer but I already know there's at least a small, teeny-tiny measure of dancing ability in you..."

"I'll have you know," interjected an equally irate Rachel, "I've been having dance classes since I was one year old..."

As always, Sue's smile suddenly became sinister as she cut over the girl. "Excellent, welcome to the Cheerios." Dave was quite impressed with how Coach played Rachel into that corner. Ignoring the divas plentiful excuses and desperate pleas, Coach stormed from the room with Becky trailing contentedly in her wake, leaving a shell-shocked diva and a very self-conscious lifter behind.

To Dave's surprise, Rachel didn't blame him for the incident and as the pair made their way to the parking lot she'd managed to prattle non-stop about Glee, Cheerios and school in general without seeming to pause for a breath. In fact, the only thing that caused her to stop was when she saw the pink paint on Max. "He was attacked by Zim right after I was outed. I like it, it gives him a bit of character." Dave smiled serenely at his car. "Maybe I should get it done professionally to spite him." Dave's smile broadened into a smirk. Yes, maybe he should.

Rachel uncertainly smiled back, the look on his face was reminiscent of the overbearing jock he used to be. "Look," she demanded and Dave obliged. "Since yesterday's performance, I've decided that yes, I'll grant you one chance. You have one shot to prove that you are worthy to be related to someone as outstanding as I am. Therefore, I'm allowing you to visit my place for the afternoon so I can get to know you a little better. Of course, if I find you lacking, I reserve the right to claim you attacked me in my bedroom as an excusable reason for using an entire can of mace on your face. I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes, David." With that, she was gone.

Dave stood blinking on the spot for several moments as he tried to remember exactly why he wanted to know Rachel better when it was clear she was mere moments away from being institutionalised. Then it hit him. She was his cousin, his family. He had no choice in the matter. Oh well, he'd do anything for his parents and new uncles. He was fairly certain that all of the parties involved wanted him to get on well with Rachel. With a shrug of his shoulders, he finally entered Max and drove to the now somewhat familiar Berry residence.

Jerry was the one who admitted him as Rachel was making sure she was presentable. Why she needed to dress up for him was a complete mystery. He'd seen her nearly everyday at school since their elementary years. The man was beaming and continuously congratulating him. Apparently, it took a lot of work to change Rachel's mind. If only he knew exactly what it was that he did, then he could use that knowledge whenever he needed to. Not that he's manipulative or anything, well not that much anyway.

Making her grand entrance from her room, Rachel was dressed in one of those sweater-vest-thingies with what looked like oompa-loompas knitted onto it. Yes, he had seen the Willy Wonka movie from back in the day and it still totally kicks the re-release's ass. If it weren't for Johnny Depp, he would have bought the DVD just to destroy it in some sort of inventive way. She also wore one of those Catholic school girl skirts. Yes, Dave had no idea why she needed to dress up. She looked as awful as always.

Rachel flashed him a brilliant smile and gestured for him to follow. Dave looked at Jerry but the man was staring mistily at the scene and he imperiously motioned for Dave to obey. With an internal sigh, Dave complied and he found himself in the cleanest room he'd ever seen, including Miss P's office and that was completely sterile. The walls were a light pink colour and there were various stuffed animals on her bed. Gold stars glittered from her mirror, window and virtually every other flat surface.

"So," began Rachel, startling Dave from his assessments. "Welcome to my room." She smiled widely at him and he tried to respond in kind.

"It's very, erm, pink and starry." Having never been in a girl's bedroom before, Dave had no idea what an appropriate response was but once again managed to unintentionally strike gold.

"I've been using gold stars ever since I was young to remind me that no matter what I do, no matter how wildly I dream, I will always shine like a star. In elementary, if the teachers accidentally forgot to put a gold star on my work, I'd put one on for them. Of course, the better the A, the bigger the star." Rachel raced to her desk and opened a draw. She pulled it out with such force that the drawer fell out and dumped the abundance of gold star stickers, post-its and decals all over the floor.

Naturally, Dave helped her to put them all back, at which she smiled radiantly. "I never knew in all those years that you bullied us exactly how much of a gentleman you are, David."

Dave struggled to respond so he stayed silent. Rachel ignored the awkward moment and instead switched on her music. The sounds of Coldplay filled the room.

_Look at the stars, look how they shine for you  
And everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow_

_I came along, I wrote a song for you  
And all the things you do. And it was called yellow_

Rachel rummaged through a different drawer and with a slight squeal, found a scrapbook. Dragging the book and Dave around her room, she tossed them both on to the bed before flopping down herself. She rearranged some of the plushies to allow room for the both of them before showing Dave the cover of the book. It was a black book with a gigantic gold star on it with a photo of Rachel at its centre. Underneath in a very flourished script were the words, _Rachel's Gold Stars_.

For a moment, Dave was worried that the girl would take him through everything she'd ever received a gold star for. Luckily that wasn't what the book was about. It wasn't a collection of school memories but of friends and relatives. Naturally the cover page contained two large gold star decals with photos of her fathers in them. Jerry smiled cheekily in his photos but the one that stood out to him the most was the one where he was clearly asleep and yet still somehow managed to beam. Lawrie was the opposite. Most of his photos featured a serious look but one contained him laughing with reckless abandon. The kind of laughter that leaves you with pains in the belly afterwards.

They talked about Lawrie and Jerry. Rachel told stories about growing up with them and Dave found them both amusing and amazing. Apparently only Lawrie could withstand one of Rachel's diva fits. Jerry would physically bolt from the room as soon as one would start, knowing he would give in to her crazy demands. Lawrie would let her build up a head of steam, scream about how unfair life was and then pat her on the back afterwards, asking if she felt better now before walking off.

Rachel also told tales that they'd told her from when she was little. Dave was certain she was exaggerating the one where she'd managed to make a soufflé on her first attempt when she was seven but he didn't call her on it.

They slowly flipped through the pages of the book, there was a picture of Nana Bell right near the front as she balefully glared at the camera and as it was so her, it featured right in the middle. There was a few uncharacteristic ones where she was smiling or laughing but the rest of them were her looking disapprovingly around, as is her custom. It was amazing that they both knew the woman so well and yet knew each other so little.

There were photos from elementary and Rachel pointed out some people like Finn and Puck. There was even one of Zim from a time where most kids were nice to everyone. "I was crying because Puck told me the tooth fairy wasn't real. Zim came over and gave me a big hug and told me Puck was lying. I made sure Daddy got a photo of him for my book after that." Rachel smiled at the little Zim and it made Dave smile too. He told her a few stories of his friend that she didn't know and at the end of it, Rachel told Dave to bring his friend along with him next time.

Next time. The words reeled through his head. She wanted to see him again? Eventually, he decided she wasn't so bad. Sure, she had a mouth on her and her shrieks would no doubt cause his ears to bleed but really, she surprised him. Despite the bitchiness, diva-like-tendencies and such, she had a heart of gold. He wouldn't be surprised if it were star shaped.

Tuning back in, Dave realised she had turned to a more recent section. It was the page he dreaded. Glee club. It wasn't because of the club itself. So they liked to sing? Well so did he. Just not where anyone could really hear him. Yesterday was clearly a once off. No. It was the little star with Kurt in it that caused him hurt. It was (of course) a beautiful photo. His eyes glittered at the camera and his quirky smile caused Dave's heart to gently flutter. How could one small photo on a little gold star cause him to feel so much?

Really, he had already managed to hurt the boy back. He stole his potential first love as a friend and turned him against him. There was no real reason to continue his feud, he wasn't really angry about it anymore. His original ideas of turning the glee club against him didn't seem to matter. Maybe revenge wasn't worth it after all. He was distracted from his musings by a click. He looked up to see the back of Rachel as she plugged something into her computer.

"Turn the page," the girl distractedly commanded and Dave did so. His breath caught in his chest. The left page was dedicated to his parents. Photos of the pair were everywhere. Some of them must have been kept by Lawrie from when he was younger. There was even one from the wedding. It had Paul and Sarah, arm in arm standing next to Lawrie who was grabbing a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter. All three were beaming. Nanna Bell stood slightly behind the siblings, a small smile on her face. One of her few. Under that particular photo was a scrawled sentence. Dave knew it was his mother's writing. _The way we should have stayed, Lawrie. Happy.  
_

It was the content on the right page that really captured his attention. The title stated _My Cousin, David_. There were small photos of his head from nearly the whole of his life around the outside. Various emotions were captured in them and he didn't know whether to feel pleased or queasy so he settled on a combination of the two. Just as he was about to say something, Rachel slammed her hand on the gaping gap in the middle of the page and when she removed it, there was a star with him from mere moments before. He was staring off into space with a sad look of longing. He seriously looked like that?

"Perfect," sighed Rachel happily. She held out a gold pen. "I always get a quote from one of the people on each page. It's your turn. Just write something you think is important."

Dave grasped the pen tightly in his clutches. His life had been such a rollercoaster these last few weeks. An image flashed into his mind, it was one of the few places he felt safe to be him even though it was with a total stranger. Miss P's office. Rachel smiled as she read his quote. _I'm one of those Boys who like boys._ They shared a wordless hug and for the first time in his life, he relaxed in Rachel Berry's presence. They talked until they fell asleep. Neither teen knew that Jerry snapped a photo of the pair as they slept soundly on the bed, well Rachel did when she found it in her scrapbook the next day. It caused her to grin.


	11. I'm Gonna Be

_G'day!_

_Another chapter for y'all! Managed to finally get it done. I've been lazy... Meh - it's what I'm good at. :-)__ There's gonna be (roughly) four more chapters before I end it so at least you know how much more to expect._

_As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. It was so nice to see that some of you were interested in my fic after so long...  
_

_Jace._

* * *

_**I'm Gonna Be**_

Dave awoke to a piercing shriek. As did Lawrie and Jerry four rooms away. When the men sprinted to their daughter's room the diva had managed to calm herself down as Dave blearily peered at her. All three saw the moment he realised he spent the night on Rachel's bed. It was when he made a half-choked, half-squealing noise and tumbled to the floor. Jerry was openly laughing, Lawrie just watched on but contained his amusement and Rachel was too busy recovering from shock to really notice his abrupt disappearance in the first place.

"Well, now that we're all awake," began Jerry far too cheerfully for someone who only just woke up, "I'm going to start on some breakfast so you're not late for school. It is Friday after all!" His sunshine bright voice was torturously pleasant.

A groan from the floor confirmed that Dave had heard him.

Jerry happily made his way to the kitchen and busied himself with his self-appointed task. Dave hauled himself to his feet with another growl. His back was aching from the awkward position he must have fallen asleep in. He found himself pushed from the room by Rachel who needed to make herself presentable. Whatever that meant. Well she had looked like the corpse bride with her scraggly hair and vacant expression. Maybe she should call it humanising herself instead.

A hand clamped down on Dave's shoulder and he once again freaked out. This time Lawrie did smile as he gestured with his head to his bedroom. "Take whatever you need, David. I assume that Jerry's clothes are probably more your style than mine." He was right. A lot of Lawrie's clothes were a collection of suits and button-ups. Jerry's side had a lot more colour and were a hell of a lot more casual. Dave selected a maroon polo and some dark blue jeans. A quick shower later (which was essential as Dave had still been in his Cheerio uniform and it reeked) Dave ate a delicious breakfast and was on his way with Rachel to McKinley.

It was the most amusing sight Dave'd seen since he caused Kurt to blush in the bathroom weeks ago. The crowds parted as the pair walked purposefully down the corridors and the looks of pure astonishment on the school population's faces were downright hilarious. It was clear that no one expected to see Rachel Berry decked out in a Cheerio uniform. Mercedes dropped her phone, Zim walked into her causing the pair to stumble over and for her to slap him repeatedly over the head as he still gazed in horror at Rachel's new attire. Coach Beiste briefly paused in her decimation of a full bucket of KFC for a moment before shrugging it off and Artie dented a couple of lockers as he forgot to engage his brakes before the spectacle began. The whispers that Dave had slowly become accustomed to tripled in intensity and for a change it didn't bother him. Probably because they weren't about him. No one batted an eye at his older ensemble next to the odd sight of cheerleader Rachel.

Just as the pair were about to go their separate ways, Dave leaned in to his cousin. "You do know there's no Cheerio practice today, don't you?"

The girl whirled around in a flash, her extremely short skirt flying up in response. "You could have told me before!" Rachel snarked moodily.

Dave shrugged, causing her to frown even more. "I thought everyone knew that Coach Sylvester would never have a practice on the same day as glee. She want's her Cheerios fresh. If she ever starts ranting about it, it usually involves detoxification of rabid hair gel for some reason."

"That's Mr Schu," noted Rachel absently. The schedule made sense and really she should have worked it out for herself.

Dave made an understanding noise before waving as he left for his first class.

The rest of the school day was a let down after the pair's dramatic entrance until Dave's last (and favourite) period. Art. He managed to finish his last flower and placed it lovingly into the kiln. This assessment was by far his best of the year, in any subject. He had to give Miss Walters credit. There was no way he'd have produced such fantastic work with any other teacher. Said teacher interrupted his train of thought from the front of the classroom, as most of the students had finished packing up for the day.

"Before you leave for no doubt more exciting things..." Miss Walters began but paused for the usual cheering for Friday that occurred every last lesson of the week, "I have some news that may interest you." Before the class could protest or even make a sound she was off. Dave was surprised by how lucid she was. Usually she was rather vague unless she needed to make a point. The teacher went on to explain about the upcoming art exhibition that was to be hosted at their school next Tuesday and how there was going to be entries from all over Ohio. Hardly anyone (with the obvious exception of Dave and a couple of others) listened until she said the magic words. "Oh, did I forget to mention the ten thousand dollar prize?"

Gasps and whispered conversations spread throughout the room. Miss Walters made no attempt to quell them. She just threw some flyers on her desk, dismissed the class and stood back from the stampede. A wise choice as those who sat toward the front of the room were mercilessly crushed by those from the back. Dave patiently waited for the mad dash of students to dissipate and grabbed one for himself. Just as he was about to read it, Miss Walters came over to him. "The category of sculpture would be your best chance, David. Your moulding work is by far superior to everyone else's in the class. Of course, this is state-wide, so the competition will be fierce. Do not be discouraged if you don't place, your sculptures are still the best I've seen at this school in years."

Dave's face flamed. "Thank you, Miss."

The kind teacher smiled gently at her favourite student. "Now, I hope you've thought about how you're going to paint those blossoms like I asked you to. You'll only have your lesson after recess on Monday to complete your paintwork. There won't be any opportunity to glaze them either."

"I understand," acknowledged Dave seriously before stuffing the flyer into his pocket and leaving the room.

It wasn't until Dave got to the parking lot that he realised that Max was still at the Berry house. With a few curses he made his way back into the school in search of the latest Cheerio. After a moment he realised that she would be in a glee rehearsal. Seriously, why would they practice on Friday afternoon? What are they? Crazy?

As he approached the classroom, he could hear the end of their latest work. He loved the Proclaimers.

_When I'm lonely, yes I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man whose lonely without you.  
When I'm dreaming, yes I know I'm gonna dream, dream about the time when I'm with you._

_But I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more.  
Just to be the man who walked one thousand miles to fall down at your door_

When he was certain the song was finished, Dave squared his shoulders, opened the door and strode into the lair of the Gleeks. Naturally, everyone was looking his way but only a few were glaring at him. Obviously Kurt was. Mercedes and Brittany were as well and the glare looked very uncharacteristic on the blonde but fair was fair. He did send her best friend to the hospital after all. Rachel was beaming from her chair and waved him over.

"Sorry for interrupting, Mr Schuster. Rachel's my lift home this afternoon. I won't butt in again." Dave apologetically smiled at the teacher who returned it benignly.

Mr Schu got a few of the Gleeks to work with Mike on some dance moves and Dave could tell why. Mercedes looked like she was trying to dance underwater, Finn fell over more times than sharks have teeth, Lauren, well everyone can tell she's a wrestler and not a dancer and Artie was adapting the moves as best he could. At least Dave could see he possessed good coordination, which is more than he could say about the rest of them.

Whilst most of the Gleeks were distracted by the spectacle, Dave excitedly showed Rachel the flyer about the art competition. They'd spent some time last night discussing his talent and she was one of three people who knew that he wanted to major in it as a career. Obviously the other two were his parents. He hadn't even told Zim. The pair burbled about it and Dave described his artwork in detail.

"You did an artwork about flowers? Dude, that's so gay!" announced Puck from behind them, causing the pair to turn around and look at him. The Puckasaurus was quietly chortling to himself as Rachel sucked in a large breath. The boy looked a little concerned at what was sure to be a loud verbal attack but a hand on her shoulder halted it.

Dave gently released his grip on his cousin's shoulder and smirked at the faux-hawked teen. "Well, since I'm gay it makes perfect sense."

"B-but," stuttered Puck. "They're flowers!" he snarked exasperatedly. His hands waved around in the air somewhat spastically as he visually portrayed his inner confusion.

"I know they're flowers," Dave patiently agreed, enjoying his chance to annoy the boy.

Puck narrowed his eyes further. "You're such a fucking f..."

Kurt's icy voice slithered into the conversation. "I hope you're not going to say what I think you're about to say, Noah." It was the first time Dave had seen the diva's glare directed at someone besides himself. It was rather refreshing.

Puck moved a little to his right, away from the boy he was sitting next to. "Wouldn't dream of it," he recovered airily.

Kurt continued to glare at Puck, who turned his attention to his crush on the dance floor. Thankfully, Mr Schuster ended the meeting soon after and the cousins left for Rachel's car. The gold Astra suited her perfectly and soon Dave was treated to another delicious round of Jerry's cooking. After bidding the Berrys farewell, Dave drove Max home as he speaker phoned Blaine about the rest of his week.

When Dave got home, he had some rather awkward words with his parents. They'd been concerned about Dave not coming home the night before until Lawrie had thoughtfully phoned them. When Sarah went on to explain she thought he might have been on a date, he experienced one of the worst cases of déjà vu he'd ever encountered. When his father cleared his voice shakily and his mother sat by his side with a concerned air, he experienced the sex talk for an unbelievable second time. What was worse, was that it was the gay sex talk which meant what had originally been a little awkward when his father was talking about having sex with women was now stiflingly abhorrent since it involved his father talking about sex with men.

When he finally managed to escape, Dave wished he hadn't phoned Blaine before. Surely the Warbler would understand the misery he was currently suffering through, right? In all honesty, his parents were awesome. As bad as it was to get the talk twice, he couldn't even imagine giving it twice. He'd just assumed that his uncles would do that instead. He hoped to whatever deity was above that they didn't. Three sex talks would surely cause him to snap and someone would die at his hands.

Now emotionally traumatised, Dave lay still on his bed for a few hours before he was able to drift off to sleep. It didn't help that he spent a fair bit of that time imagining himself and Kurt in a few of those positions that his mother had somehow found very graphic flashcards of. Only if he was dying would he admit that he also had to take care of an embarrassing problem to said imagery. Several times. If only he'd been normal when he worked this shit out. Then Kurt mightn't have hated him. Damn hindsight.


	12. Man! I Feel Like A Woman!

_G'day!_

_Here's the next instalment. What started as a small filler mutated into this. I achieved the main goal of the chapter but I was supposed to move on a little faster. Oh well, I liked it better this way._

_As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. I totally love you guys!_

_Jace._

* * *

_**Man! I Feel Like A Woman!**_

The weekend was a wonderful couple of days. On Saturday, Dave introduced Zim to Blaine as the three of them sat down for coffee at Starbucks. At first Zim was a little wary but when the waitress tried hitting on Blaine (who let her down gently) then Dave (who brokenly stammered he was gay) Zim lapped up all of her attention and then saw the great value of his position as the straight best friend. Unfortunately for Stella, Zim confided after she'd left with their orders that he already had a date lined up with Mercedes Jones. Apparently, after he fell all over the diva, he tracked her down and apologised profusely before scoring a date with her.

Dave decided that she might be good for him. She wouldn't take his crap for starters. They also had a few things in common. They were both black, they attended the same church every Sunday and they both had gays for besties. Did he just think the word besties? Man, if Dave didn't know he was gay before, he certainly would now. Both Dave and Blaine congratulated the chocolate coloured teen even though Blaine only knew Mercedes by reputation. She was well respected by the gleeks on their facebook group.

Later that afternoon, the Bells came over to the Karofskys house for Sarah's birthday. She didn't want anything fancy but Dave did buy her the latest Twilight book even though he had no idea why she liked it in the first place. He tried reading the original novel but couldn't stand the writing style. When he reached the point where vampires apparently glowed in the sunlight, he gave it up completely. Having them die was much more interesting than just glowing. Seriously. Either way, his mother thanked him and he could tell she was itching to read it. He wouldn't have been surprised if she kicked out all of her relatives so she could start immediately. She didn't though. Nanna Bell would have kicked her ass if she did, no matter how old the woman had gotten.

It seemed that his parents had also gotten used to Rachel's ranting as neither batted an eye when the girl went off about something or other. Dave thought it had something to do with a musical but he wasn't really sure. He'd never heard of The Boy from Oz before and wondered whether it had something to do with the Wizard of Oz. By the end of the rant he still didn't know.

The evening also brought one last surprise. It was the first official occasion where his parents allowed him to drink in their presence. Sure, he'd been to parties before but he always made sure he could crash at the Azimio residence. He had an inkling his parents knew he was drinking but he'd never provided proof of the fact by stumbling in and slurring terrible renditions of My Heart Will Go On. No, those sorts of things shouldn't occur in front of the people who (sometimes unwillingly) raised him.

Dave started with the champagne that everyone had a glass of and then the family progressed to their own favoured drinks. Rachel refused to imbibe after her initial glass and stuck with lemonade. She claimed someone had to drive her alcoholic parents home at the end of the night. Alcoholic, they certainly were. Jerry and Paul started on heavy beer while Lawrie and Sarah began sipping Midori. Dave was amused by his uncles. If he had to guess their preferred poisons, he would have had them in reverse. Nanna Bell warily consented to a glass of port, which Dave had a sip of and immediately choked on. He passed his glass to his grandmother for her to finish for him. It was disgusting. From there he progressed to scotch and very little was remembered from that point on.

The next morning Dave woke feeling like an elephant had trampled all over his head. After mentally preparing himself for over fifteen minutes to hop out of his bed, the shrill message tone of his phone finally triggered him to stand. He wobbled unsteadily to his desk where the offending piece of technology innocently lay.

The text was from an unknown number. Dave cautiously clicked it open, hoping it wasn't some sort of gay basher from school. It stated, **Good morning starshine! The Earth says Hello!**

With a look of abject horror, Dave managed a reply. **Um, wtf and who r u?**

Dave could practically hear the snooty reply as he read it. **It's Rachel. It was a reference to the classic Broadway musical, Hair. Basically I wanted to annoy you since you're probably suffering from a hangover if your drunken performance of Man! I Feel Like A Woman! was anything to go by.** Naturally, Dave was completely mortified about this and no matter how hard he tried to remember it, the memory eluded him.

Before he could formulate a reply, a new text buzzed in. **And yes, our parents saw it all.** Damn it to hell. Suddenly death seemed a reasonable alternative.

**Oh.** There was nothing more he could say.

**You have nothing to worry about. For some reason, you sing better drunk than sober. It might have something to do with lowering your inhibitions and letting go. It was actually better than some of the glee numbers I've sat through recently. Well, not better than any of mine but that's to be expected. **Dave rolled his eyes at that. It was classic Rachel.

Dave replied, **Thx, I guess.**

Instead of a new text, Dave was sent an internet link. He booted up his laptop, grabbed a quick coffee from the mercifully empty kitchen (he didn't want to see his parents at the moment) and sat gingerly at his desk, paracetamol in hand. The link was for a movie clip download. Since Rachel sent it to him, he figured it wasn't a virus so he saved it to his hard drive. When the rather large video file was downloaded, he quickly opened it.

The view was one he was rather familiar with, it was his lounge room. Loud music was blaring from the docking station as Jerry and Sarah were energetically bouncing around to it. They somehow managed to keep most of their beverages in their glasses which they were waving around carelessly. "Oh, good. It's on," came Rachel's voice from somewhere behind the camera and the commentary began. "So there's Daddy and Aunty Sarah acting like loons. She'll have to get in professionals to remove the stains from the carpet tomorrow if she doesn't want it to be blemished indefinitely."

Dave snorted. Trust Rachel to worry about the carpet instead of enjoying herself at a party.

The view moved to the couch where Paul was starting to nod off next to Nanna Bell, who alternated between staring at her son-in-law with a large look of disapproval and swigging cheerfully from an extremely large glass of wine. Dave remembered his father got it as a gag gift from work before he moved to his new job. The wine glass held the same content as a German stein. From the mottled colour, Dave had a sinking feeling that it was probably still port and the mere thought of that horribly flavoured drink was enough to make his stomach churn uncomfortably.

By now he'd already tuned out Rachel's incessant nattering until he caught his own name and sure enough, the camera panned over to an extremely intoxicated sixteen year old Dave. His clothes were rumpled, his mouth was wide open as if he couldn't be bothered to close it and a glass of straight scotch was held firmly in his grasp. It was disconcerting to see himself as a drunkard. Still it was somewhat amusing as well. He was half sprawled over his Uncle Lawrie who was giggling like a schoolgirl. They were having a very odd conversation about brooms, liposuction and lemon meringue pie. "Honestly, I don't know what on Earth they're talking about," Rachel chided. Dave agreed. It made no sense to him either.

The movie progressed and it was most amusing. Paul fell asleep briefly before Nanna Bell exuberantly belted him awake, causing him to be pushed from the couch. Jerry had an epic dance floor stack that Dave was certain would have bruised half his leg. His mother tried to do the Nutbush but gave up when it was clear she couldn't remember the moves even though the camera started giggling around as Rachel was probably trying to help her out. Or showing her talents because she just couldn't help herself. Dave sauntered past the camera and Rachel crowed, "I'm sure that's number fifteen. How the hell is he still conscious?" In all honesty, Dave didn't know himself.

Nanna Bell had passed out, although the overlarge port-filled wine glass was proudly empty by her side. She was leaning heavily on Paul who was also out like a drag queen. There was a red mark on the side of his head from Nanna Bell attacked him earlier and it looked painful. Dave imagined he'd have one killer headache from that alone. Sarah was still dancing and her coordination issues far transcended the problematic ones Dave saw in the glee rehearsal last Friday. She was more unco than a tap dancing, one-legged pirate.

The camera zoomed to the other couch where Jerry and Lawrie were now making out next to a clearly clueless Dave, causing Rachel to groan. "Again? Every time they drink together it's like they're teenagers. Really, I should be the one randomly making out instead of my fathers. I don't need to see that." Dave knew where she was coming from. He didn't need to see his parents canoodling either. At least Rachel didn't have the added threat of the whole 'they had sex to make me' thing. Just the thought caused Dave to shudder.

The familiar strains of Shania Twain came from the speakers and Dave heard himself shout, "Oh my fucking God! I love this song!" He cringed at himself and naturally the camera remained fixed on him, allowing him to see himself struggling to stand from the couch. Uncle Lawrie (who had disentangled himself from his husband) had to give him a push but in the end he was vertical. Since Sarah was taking an alcoholic drinks break, the dance floor was his. He threw back the rest of his drink, slammed the glass on the table, luckily without destroying either item and proceeded to shake his ass and sing along.

_The best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun and..._

_Oh, oh, oh, go totally crazy, forget I'm a lady, men's shirts, short skirts.  
__Oh, oh, oh, really go wild yeah, doin' it in style._  
_Oh, oh, oh, get in the action, feel the attraction, colour my hair, do what I dare._  
_Oh, oh, oh, I wanna be free yeah, to feel the way I feel._

_Man! I feel like a woman!_

Oh fucking shit. As if it wasn't bad enough that he'd just witnessed himself acting like a complete tosspot, Rachel effing Berry had video evidence of the debacle. There were a few pros though. Nanna Bell hadn't seen it, his uncles and mother were totally cheering him on and he did sound quite good, despite the actual song. Dammit. Now Rachel knew he listened to country music too.

As if the devil herself knew she was being cursed from afar, Dave's phone started ringing and he paused the movie to answer it. "Hey Rach."

"Hello David," burbled the brunette far too cheerfully for this early on a Sunday morning. Especially after a night of drinking. "Have you finished watching the movie yet?" she asked innocently. Despite her tone, Dave was certain the girl was smirking at her end.

"Not entirely, but I did get to see my, er..." Dave trailed off.

"Dazzling performance?" ended Rachel. It was clear the diva was going to milk this for all it was worth.

Dave made a noise in the back of his throat in answer causing his cousin to laugh.

"David, you do know that I'll be playing this at your eighteenth birthday party, don't you?"

"WHAT!" shrieked Dave in a very unmanly way. This caused Rachel to laugh even harder. "Surely there must be something I can do to stop you from showing, erm, that. If Zim saw that, well, what little credibility I have left will be gone," Dave wheedled. He'd beg her if he had to. None of his few friends should see that. Ever.

There was a long pause before Rachel's voice broke the silence. "There is a little something you could do for me, my dear David."

"Yes! Anything!" Dave agreed immediately. Anything had to be better than suffering through that on his eighteenth. Embarrassing stories were one thing, video evidence was entirely another.

"When Santana had that... unfortunate accident, I was made a Cheerio..."

Dave cut her off. "I can't change Coach Sylvester's mind. No one can. That deranged old dingbat wouldn't..."

Rachel then cut Dave off. "That wasn't what I wanted and if you had let me finish you would know that." Rachel let that statement hang. When she was sure she would not be interrupted again, she continued. "As I was saying, with Santana down, the Cheerios were one short. However, they aren't the only team to be down a member."

Dave had a bad feeling that he knew exactly where this conversation was headed. He was proven correct when Rachel demanded that he join glee. She started raving about how they needed one more person to be eligible for nationals and he owed her. Plus she'd leak his home movie. At least it wasn't a pornographic home movie, mused Dave to himself.

The pair argued over it for a while. Dave explained his reluctance to be anywhere near Kurt due to his outing and his undeniable crush. Rachel squealed like a three year old over a birthday present when he told her about the locker room kiss. She then countered by saying there were so many people in that room that he'd hardly notice Kurt at all. Plus the boy always had a soft spot for a good singer. Like Blaine for example. Dave disagreed since he was only good when he was drunk and Rachel pressed with how she could help him with that and at least they both knew he had great potential.

The discussion lasted for the better part of half an hour but in the end, the solution was simple. Rachel had an answer to everything. That coupled with her blackmail material caused Dave to reluctantly agree. Kurt Hummel, watch out. A new gay guy is coming to glee.


	13. Breakeven Falling To Pieces

_Why hello peoples._

_So it's been weeks. My bad. I don't feel bad about it though, I've been busy with work, a social life and even a fling or two so fanfic was put on the backburner. Schmeh. It sucked to write this chapter but it needed to be done._

_As always, thanks reviewers, favers and alerters. You guys totally rock!_

_Jace._

* * *

_**Breakeven (Falling to Pieces)**_

Despite everyone's wishes, Monday quickly rolled around and Dave found himself catching a ride to school with Rachel. After contemplating the impromptu paint job on Max, he'd bitten the bullet and was getting it repainted. The exterior would be resprayed black although he was going to retain the pink highlights. He just wanted it to be done professionally and the graffiti removed.

Rachel was in her element as the pair strode to their first class. She mercilessly teased him about his drunkenness at his mother's birthday party and the hangover he nursed the next day. Dave was almost thankful to see Mr Porter's face. Almost. Thus began another boring lesson of Biology followed by Geometry. Lame. He was saved from the last half of his Geo class by a very unusual trio. An uncharacteristically serious Miss Walters led the way into his classroom, followed by a sad looking Miss Pillsbury and worst of all, a stony faced Principal Figgins. "Mr Karofsky, follow us and bring your things with you," demanded the head of the school. Mr Blyth rolled his eyes at the interruption before continuing his droning lecture on tetrahedrons.

Quickly throwing his possessions into his schoolbag with a frown, Dave tried working out what the hell was going on. He hadn't been bullying anyone for ages. Did someone frame him for something? If they did, they were well behind in the social loop. He hurried to catch up with the adults.

The four stopped outside the room next to Miss Walter's classroom. It was the exhibition hall, where art works were displayed pridefully for everyone to see. Previously, the room was more frequently used as a make-out venue until the security cameras were installed. Now it was pretty much left alone by the apathetic student body of McKinley.

Just as Principal Figgins started to open the door, Dave felt a hand fall on his shoulder. His eyes met the owner's and Miss Walters softly spoke. "This will hurt you, probably more than you could ever imagine."

"Oooookay," said Dave warily as he peeked past Figgins. The room looked as it always did, desolate.

Miss Pillsbury cleared her throat and Dave (who had forgotten she was also there) jumped in surprise. "Although we did capture the culprit with our camera system, the suspect cleverly hid their face."

Leading the quartet into the room, Principal Figgins strode stoically to a corner of the room. Something about it was off. It took Dave a moment to realise the table in front of him was the only one which was empty with the exception of a small identification tag. His identification tag. It had a small blurb about his concept of his sculpture and a little about himself. Nothing to be worried about. His eyes met Miss P's. Her eyes flicked to the floor, his followed and his world came tumbling down.

Dry clay was laying in pieces in front of the display table.

Immediately, he knew the project he'd worked diligently on for almost an entire term had in a single moment, been destroyed.

Without a thought, Dave sank to the floor. It was a shambles. He found portions of all four of the flowers intermixed and he suddenly lacked the energy to do pretty much anything. Without even noticing, tears dripped unchecked down his face.

Principal Figgins was rambling on about something but Dave didn't hear a single word of it. He was too busy trying to work out who the hell would do this. Nothing else had been demolished, so it was clearly a personal attack on him but who the hell wanted to do that? Since Zim had backed him, hardly anyone bothered him about his gayness anymore.

A pair of fingers snapped in front of his face and Dave blinked a few times before focussing on what Miss Walters was saying.

"...ve? Are you listening now?" she sounded exasperated and Dave had a strong suspicion that she'd probably been trying to garner his attention for a while.

"Yes Miss," whispered Dave hoarsely.

"So you have two choices." The harsh tone of her voice and stern look on her face made her seem much older than usual. It also made her about sixty times scarier. She looked more than capable of murder. Dave hoped he never made her shit list. Miss Walters named her choices. "One. You can cry about your loss, grab a broom and clean it up, or two. You can pick up the pieces, work with what you've got and try to pull it together. The principal did say that you could have the rest of the day off to work on it after all."

"He did?" asked Dave in surprise.

That caused Miss Walters to smile. "Well, you really were out of it." The teacher then went on to retell Dave what Figgins had been waffling about. Apparently, he'd been generously allowed to have a couple of friends help him that would also be exempt from the rest of the day's classes and he could work in Miss Walter's private workroom away from the school. Do schoolwork or art? What a tough decision.

Dave named his friends and Miss Pillsbury eagerly went off to find them. Miss Walters gave him a spare key to her workroom and showed him where to find it.

By the time they returned to the exhibition hall, his friends were standing side by side (which Dave considered to be an extreme show of solidarity since he was almost certain they hated each other) Zim with an appalled and angry expression and Rachel was predictably in tears on his behalf. It was hard to believe they'd only been friends (and cousins) for a couple of weeks.

Miss Walters left them to it as she had an important meeting lined up and the trio recovered all of the pieces they could from the mess on the floor. They were halfway through unpacking the pieces in the workroom when the recess bell rang. It was surprising they heard it over the music coming from the radio Miss Walters thoughtfully left on for them.

_'Cause when a heart breaks no it don't breakeven, even, no.  
What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you and what am I supposed to say when I'm all choked up that you're ok  
I'm falling to pieces, yeah, I'm falling to pieces._

Dave waved his friends off for lunch, knowing they'd have to be hungry by now. Rachel left the room, still sniffling saying she'd be back as soon as the next lesson began. Zim waddled to his backpack and grabbed out his lunch and sat with his devastated friend. It was the first time Dave'd stopped after he'd taken in the fact that someone had trashed his best artwork. He sat silently, listening to the steady munching noises that Zim was making, his brain ticking over.

It still made no sense. Sure, he'd been a bully but was then turned into a victim with his outing and now no one could give two fucks about him. Also no one knew how much his art meant to him besides Zim and Rachel. Zim had known of his love or art since they were in the third grade. He'd told Rachel about it that time where they fell asleep on her bed. They were also the only two people (besides his parents) that he'd mentioned the competition to. It was all weird because there were absolutely no suspects.

The bell rang once more and predictably the door to the workroom opened but instead of Rachel, the backlit figure was clearly male.

"I heard you needed some support," Blaine Anderson's cultured voice mentioned. Dave leapt to his feet and ran over for a much needed hug.

Rachel sailed past the pair as Zim let out a small cough. Dave disengaged himself from the Warbler and thwacked Zim's head.

"What?" queried Zim with a pout.

Dave just eyed him reproachfully.

"Fine, sorry," apologised Zim.

Rachel and Blaine looked on in confusion until Dave explained Zim's cough was a poor attempt at disguising what he'd said ("Gay"). Zim tried to point out that if neither of the other two worked it out it was rather well disguised which only earned him another thwack from his friend. As fun and therapeutic as it was to smack his friend around, he was on a time schedule.

There were two boxes which still needed to be carefully unpacked and the quartet went about it as speedily as possible. As they worked Zim explained that he'd lifted Blaine's phone number from Dave's one afternoon and as soon as Miss Pillsbury had pulled him from class and informed him of the situation, he sent a text immediately to the Dalton student who feigned an illness and ditched school in favour of looking out for his friend.

Soon the bench in the workroom was covered in small pieces of clay and the four could plainly seen the extent of the damage. It was pretty horrific. The only parallel that could be drawn was that it was similar to the tale of Humpty Dumpty. It was pretty clear that no matter how many people they called in to help, there was no way the flowers could be pieced back together again. Since it would be impossible to reassemble the pieces, Dave had began to think about what he could do instead. Ideas flashed thorough his mind and most were immediately rejected but one somewhat crazy idea began to take shape in his head.

Zim looked at his friend and was surprised to be met with a calculating stare. Rachel was busy eying the carnage and Blaine was idly scratching his head and neither noticed the odd look on Dave's face.

"Alright, here's the plan," announced Dave when he'd gained the attention of his friends. "Rachel, start looking for parts of the lotus, they're ripply like this one." He selected a part of a petal he recognised as being from the water flower from the table and passed it to her. She looked at the piece before starting to match it with others on the bench. "Blaine, you get the rose, Zim, the dandelion. I'm going to do the sunflower. When you've found a few pieces, sort them into stem, leaves and petals. Don't bother trying to fit them together, it'll never work."

"Why not?" asked Blaine as he snatched up another flaming petal from the bench.

"My original concept's useless now so I've come up with another."

The radio was the only real indicator of the passage of time in the room as the four went about their task. The only real exceptions were when they asked their leader whether the piece they were looking at actually was one of theirs or not.

Out of the four, Dave was obviously the first to be finished even though he was the last to start. He did spend hours of his life working with these flowers after all. Since the clay had hardened, it would be next to impossible to seamlessly meld the pieces back together so he decided to do the exact opposite. Dave grabbed out a glue pot and opened it gingerly. He hated the smell of the stuff but it was the strongest stuff available. With a shudder, he emptied some into a separate container. He returned the foul glue pot and found some black paint which he mixed into the glue.

"Yay!" cheered Zim as he snatched up the last piece from the bench but he had little time to celebrate as a pot of paint was thrust in his direction. He (and the others) were instructed to paint their petal pieces their designated colour. Like the good little assistants they were, they complied. This time a little more jovially since they didn't need to think.

As they worked, Zim and Dave had a lengthy discussion (argument) about the NFL as Rachel and Blaine sang along with the radio, creating some of their own harmonies if they found the song to be lacking. Soon they were using different shades of green on their stems and leaves and their topics of conversation had shifted many times.

Zim had discovered Rachel once dated Puck which he found hard to believe, not because Puck wouldn't (he'd shag a tree if it could accommodate him) but because he thought Rachel would be too prudish to date a bad boy.

Blaine found out Zim's favourite singer was Tina Turner and proclaimed that there was a little gay in all of us.

Rachel worked out she'd actually seen Blaine perform two years before she'd joined glee at Disneyworld when her fathers had taken her for her birthday. Apparently, Blaine had been cast in the role of Peter Pan for one of the stage shows for a season and she'd watched it. They then reminisced over the songs in it while the other two boys rolled their eyes and tried to block the conversation from their minds.

Dave's revelation however was the biggest of the lot. He finally solved the mystery of the infamous _RaspBerrY SurPrisE_. Never in his life did he think that Rachel Eva Berry would be any good at HALO and here she was, one of the best players on their local network. It was shameful. He'd been killed by her more times than anyone else. His girl cousin. It was lucky he was busy with his flowers or he'd have to do something drastic to prove his manliness. Wait up, he's gay. He has the world's best excuse for getting beaten by a girl now. Blaine too. Zim on the other hand, not so much.

As the now painted were drying, Dave hugged each of his closest friends. When he had been forced out of his closet, he'd honestly thought he'd spend the rest of his life a complete loner. Stupid, he knew but that's what it felt like. Now he had three friends. One old reforged friendship and two new, shiny ones. Before he could get too emotional, he evicted them from the room amid some loud (and piercing - damn Rachel's a screechy shrew) protests.

"Sorry guys but I need full concentration to work my magic. Thanks so much for everything today, it all means so much to me..." Dave trailed off. His throat had decided to clamp shut and he was finding it difficult to force the words out. The others seemed to understand anyway and decided to leave him to it. Instead, they'd hit up the mall together. Dave was already feeling sorry for Zim but knew the second that Rachel mentioned that she'd text Mercedes that his friend would be joining them, no matter how much he hated shopping.

Rachel testily informed Dave (she was still a little miffed at getting kicked out of the workroom) that when he was finished he was to join them and as if they had teleported out, Dave was left by himself. No matter, now he could get back to the job at hand. Dave settled down, grabbed his black glue concoction and got to work. This sculpture had no idea how much it was going to be his bitch and that would be nothing compared to the dipshit that did this in the first place. If he ever found out who destroyed his work, they'd wish he hadn't.


	14. Titanium

_Hey._

_Another chapter complete. Special thanks to __**RHatch89**__ for pointing out that Rachel's middle name is Barbra. Once again I was too lazy to check facts beforehand, like Zim's real name for instance. I named it from the main protagonist of Evita, Eva Peron. I thought it would be fitting for her to be named after one of the most well known and strong female Broadway characters in history._

_Since I've clearly left the world of canon, I must admit I'm not too worried about it. Truth be told, I've also stopped watching Glee altogether. GASP! When I realised that I'd started fast forwarding to the songs and skipped the boring bits in between, I'd lost my original love of the show. As always, I blame Quinn. Whenever she's on the screen, I want to stab myself in the head with a rusty screwdriver. _

_Meh, I prefer the fanfic to the canon anyway (just like with Harry Potter and Twilight - read the last two HP books drunk and I outright refuse to read the Twi ones). Especially __**CP Coulter**__'s __**Dalton**__ series. If you haven't read it, do so. It's the only story with Blaine in it that I actually love. READ IT!_

_Anyways, now that I've stopped ranting... Thanks all reviewers, favers and alerters. Sometimes I'm surprised people are still reading this story. It's nice to know you are. :-)_

_BTW - My knowledge of sculpture techniques may be completely wrong. It's been years since I was in year ten art but I've tried to be as accurate a possible. My apologies for any inaccuracies and the length of the arty part._

_Cheers, Jace._

* * *

_**Titanium**_

To Dave's complete surprise, he finished his artwork much sooner than he expected. Since his friends had painted the clay pieces for him (before they were evicted to the mall at the end of third period. As if they'd go to gym class. It's not like Dave was going to rat them out after everything they'd done for him) all Dave had to do was assemble his sculpture. In fact, when he got into the zone everything seemed to fall into place for him, which was ironically amusing to the aspiring artist.

After his original four flowers were appallingly trashed, Dave adapted his concept. In fact, his idea of balancing out the four elements was better captured in its recreation. Gone were four flowers and one now stood proudly in their place. Naturally his flower was larger than the four originals since it was now an amalgamation of them all. Each piece had been painstakingly stuck together with his black glue concoction. He decided to call his new sculpture Aether.

In his small measure of research into his original concept, Dave came across something called aether. Early beliefs were that in addition to the four elements, was a fifth. Aether. It was sometimes referred to as void (by the Japanese) or sky (by the Babylonians). Apparently aether was a necessary element. Without it, it was believed that the other four would ultimately consume and destroy each other. Since his new sculpture had combined each element harmoniously, it practically named itself.

Each quadrant was now one of the flowers. The easiest quarter to put together had surprisingly been Zim's grey dandelion. Since most of the seedling parts were so small to start with, all he had to do was rearrange them. His brown sunflower segment was the next easiest. Most of the petals were relatively flat. He combined them into larger ones without too much difficulty. Rachel's blue lotus was moderately difficult to pull together but nothing had prepared him for how torturous it would be to assemble Blaine's red rose. Trying to create large curvy petals out of smaller curvy ones was the distinct opposite of pleasant.

Thankfully, the black goop took care of everything. By laying it on a little thick, it joined each piece easily. In the end his large aether flower looked like a combination of clay sculpture, painting and stained glass window. He'd intentionally intermixed where one flower began and another one finished because it was easier and it also lent itself to creating harmony between the elements.

A squeal almost caused him to knock it over and ruin his (and his friends') hard work. He'd been finishing up the rose petal from hell when Miss Walters returned. Apparently, the last class for the day had just finished. She cooed over it for a little bit before dashing off with a creepy maniacal cackle. Dave blinked and returned back to his work when he was startled once more as a pot was slammed down by his side. Was Miss Walters a ninja? How the hell did she sneak up on him so silently?

"I've changed my mind," announced the teacher.

Dave blinked at her a few times in shock. "But you never change your mind," Dave noted with astonishment.

Miss Walters just smirked. "Well, miracles do happen Sonny. I've just fired up the kiln. You WILL glaze that and you have half an hour. GO!"

Staring at his art teacher, worrying for her sanity, Dave was startled into action when she prodded him in the head. Perhaps she was also an army commander as well as a ninja. He hastened to follow her instructions.

It was just over half an hour since the final bell rang when he carefully lowered the brush he was using to glaze his now finished work. Miss Walters removed her phone from her pocket and took a video of Aether. "While glazing an artwork will strengthen and create a glossy finish, it's still pottery and thus fragile. I don't want you to end up with nothing again if this should befall a similar, accident," the art teacher explained to Dave. "It's a pity we can't make it bullet proof or something..." she muttered as she gently carried the clay flower to the now fired up kiln.

While Miss Walters was gone, Dave packed up the room. The sound of the radio, his only companion.

_I'm bullet proof, nothing to lose, fire away, fire away  
Ricochet, you take your aim, fire away, fire away  
You shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am titanium  
You shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am titanium_

When the area was clean and he was packed up, he realised he could actually catch up with his friends at the mall. That is, if he could score a lift since Max was still getting done up. Luckily his mother was obliging and in no time, Dave was on his way to the food court where Zim said the rest were hanging out while Blaine was still eating his chilli fries.

Naturally, Dave found them by hearing Rachel's piercing voice as she was boring the guys (well, just Zim as Blaine was nodding along, his mouth full of fried potato) with her views on the portrayal of nuns in Rodgers and Hammerstein's _The Sound of Music_. Mind you, Zim wasn't too concerned because he was too busy leaning into Mercedes to care. Dave gracelessly plonked himself between Rachel and Blaine after he'd grabbed himself a kebab. It wasn't until he was halfway through that he even acknowledged their presence. Not eating for most of the day had taken its toll.

"Well?" inquired Rachel as she impatiently tapped her fingers on the tabletop.

Dave hastened to swallow a huge mouthful and let her know the artwork was complete. Zim and Blaine high-fived as Rachel let out one of her trademarked squeals. Mercedes just appeared confused so Zim filled her in on the happenings of the day while the boys finished their meals.

"Wanna peek?" asked Dave as he tantalisingly waved his phone in the air. He'd followed Miss Walters' idea and took a video for himself. Zim dragged Mercedes around to the other side of the table so everyone could watch it at once.

The movie started up and Dave thought his hearing would never recover. Why the hell did he voluntarily sit next to his cousin? The unsteady picture circled the sculpture and the three helpers each felt a measure of satisfaction at seeing the art they helped to create fully formed.

"That's amazing!" announced Zim who had decided he wanted to beat the brunette to the punch for once but he needn't have bothered since Rachel was too busy bouncing in her seat with excitement to actually articulate a sentence. Blaine clapped him on the back cheerfully with quite a few comments about how lovely and poignant (whatever that meant) his work was. Rachel eventually demanded several encores of his movie and then insisted he Bluetooth it to her immediately. Blaine and Zim also wanted a copy for themselves and Dave willingly obliged.

"'Cedes?" inquired Zim at his hopefully-soon-to-be-girlfriend. It wasn't official yet, hell this was technically the second time they'd met after school and it was with this odd ragtag group and not a real date anyway. The chocolate coloured girl was staring into space with widened eyes. She blinked and focussed her attention onto Jordan. "What's up, girl?"

Mercedes bit on her lip, deep in thought. She carefully pulled out her phone and opened a text she'd received yesterday. Without preamble, she handed it to Dave causing Zim's left eyebrow to raise with suspicion. Reading the rambling text, Dave was struck speechless.

_Cedes. I've done something and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It felt so good at the same time. He deserved it. Every bit of the pain. He's made me feel worse for years and it's only fair he gets it back in return. The Neanderthal must suffer. Hearing the smashes was liberating. Yet despite all that I know what I did was wrong. I've been bitchy for years but not outright spiteful. What should I do?_

As soon as he saw the word Neanderthal, Dave knew it was from Kurt and within moments he knew exactly what the teen was talking about. "It was him," Dave numbly stated as he handed Mercedes' phone back to her. In some way, deep down, he'd already figured it out. This was just confirmation of something he didn't want to know, like finding your run over cat a few days after it had gone missing. News you already knew in your heart but yet didn't want to know and his heart was now fracturing.

Kurt had delighted in destroying something that was almost like a child to him. It was low, hurtful and downright cowardly. At least when the two of them got into altercations, it was in each other's faces, not behind their backs.

"HE DIDN'T!" shouted an irate Zim who had apparently just finished reading the text for himself.

Mercedes just nodded. She placed a hand on Zim's shoulder and he somehow began to calm. Blaine looked politely puzzled as he patiently waited to be filled in while Rachel demanded to know what the hell was going on. Zim just pushed the phone in her direction and blocked his ears. A wise decision as Rachel practically exploded. People at the nearby tables fled the horrid sound, Mercedes and Blaine soon covered their ears too and only Dave withstood it since he was too shocked to notice anything as mundane as a patent Rachel Berry hissy fit.

Having had enough, Jordy slapped Rachel and she thankfully stopped screeching and started ranting quietly to herself instead. There were more curses in it than in a Harry Potter book. Even Mercedes looked on in disbelief when the diva eventually wore herself out.

"Well, that was..." began Blaine but no one ever found out exactly what it was as he petered out, leaving a prolonged silence in its wake.

Rachel suddenly stood up, causing the others to flinch (since they were expecting an encore of her dulcet tones) but she instead walked behind Dave and gave him a hug. Zim quickly joined her. They were the only ones who knew who deeply he felt for Kurt. Rachel because he'd told her and Zim because he knew his friend so well that he'd worked it out for himself.

Finding himself once again in tears, Dave was just happy he'd finished his sculpture before he found out about its saboteur.

"So, what are we going to do about it?" seethed Rachel as she still held Dave's shaking form.

"What do you mean?" asked Blaine.

Rachel's eyes hardened as she pulled away from Dave and Zim. "There's no way in hell I'm going to let Kurt break my cousin's heart and get away with it." Mercedes gasped and some of the comments that Dave had made to Blaine over their coffee dates clicked together.

"Well," began Dave quietly. "When Kurt outed me, I was actually working on a plan knock him down a few pegs."

"That sounds like an excellent place to start," decided Blaine, "but I don't think you should tell us about it yet." He turned his eyes on Mercedes. "You need to choose a side. Are you going to stick with dear Kurty, the guy who not only outed another guy at school but then destroyed one of his school projects, or are you going to help us get even with him?"

Mercedes contemplated it all. Kurt was her best friend but he'd changed. He wasn't as fun as he used to be when they hung out together. In fact, that text was the first one he'd sent her in about a week or so. The boy had also become somewhat crueller and more acerbic. Then again, she wasn't entirely sure that fighting fire with fire was the way to go about it.

"Um," she stalled, "I don't know if hurting him is the way to make everything better. He wounded you by outing you after you bullied him and it clearly hasn't made him a better person. In fact it's changed him for the worst. Anyway, I don't know if I can hurt him."

The group sat quietly, contemplating her words.

Dave was the one who spoke up. "Well, my plan was less about hurting him and more making myself better than him. Rivalling him. At first I wanted to kick his ass. A lot. But then I started to change and so did my ideas. I realised that since Kurt's a diva, the best way to get to him would be to outshine him. I began to accept who I was, I discovered my new supportive family," he grinned at Rachel. "I reconnected with old friends," smirked Dave at Jordy before shifting his attention to Blaine, "and made new ones. My grades are higher than they've been since elementary school, I'm fitter and happier too. If I can make myself even better, it'll aggravate Kurt much more than just kicking him in the balls."

Tilting her head, Mercedes considered the difference. "As long as I'm not outright hurting him, I'll help you."

"Count me in," added Zim as he grabbed Mercedes' hand with a smile.

"I can't wait to start," agreed Blaine genially.

Rachel looked unconvinced. "Can I at least castrate him a little?" she pleaded with a pout.

Dave laughed but shook his head. "No, Rach. No ball removal for you."

Muttering under her breath ("Dammit") Rachel consented to help out too. "Don't expect me to hold back though, I'm still going to yell at him," she sniffed disdainfully.

Dave just smiled in response. His quest to bring Kurt down had now morphed into a rivalry. The main difference, he now had a squad of dedicated combatants to help him achieve his goal. Kurt Hummel will rue the day he outed David Karofsky because he was going to steal his precious limelight.


	15. Commander

_Hey there._

_So I've scrounged up another chapter._

_It was pointed out to me (by __**HonokaHana**__ and __**UmeiTenshi**__) that my writing has taken a nose dive. I've done some thinking on the subject and come to some conclusions._

_Firstly, they are completely correct. _

_My earlier chapters were much better, they were more light hearted, fun and overall more entertaining. At the time, Karofsky was featuring in Glee regularly and it was around the big kiss time. I practically lived every week to watch the next episode. Then came the complete disappearance of the one character I liked best and related to the most. Sure I was never a jock (sports ain't my thing) but in many ways, Dave and I are quite similar. I struggled through the next episodes until finally giving up on them completely toward the beginning of season 3. I feel my enthusiasm in my fanfic waned as my interest in the show lessened. _

_So, in the interests of improving myself, I sat down and caught myself up over the last week and I must admit, the last few episodes in particular have somewhat rekindled my faith in the show. For starters, the return of Dave. YAY! Add that to the random synchronised swimming proposal, Mercedes' Whitney Houston tribute, the reintroduction of Rachel's Dads and Quinn's accident, I found myself (for the first time in a while) hanging out for the next episode. It seems my Glee addiction may be returning._

_Secondly, I realised that although I did say my story would be eventual Kurtofsky, I never really mentioned how long it was projected at. When I started this I was rather sick of the stories where Kurt and Dave would somehow get together within a few days or weeks and would magically be head over heels in love. That's why mine was set at a much slower pace. I'm still aiming for my original length of a 100K word story. My apologies if it's not progressing as fast as you may like, guys, but I always intended this to be a long one. I will try to improve my update speed but I make no promises. I'll aim to write one chapter every weekend._

_Lastly, as for the OOCness of my characters, back when I started this fic, I was new to the world of fanfic and only later found out what that meant. After I post this chapter, I'll also update my original blurbie to include OOC. Unfortunately, some of the mistakes I made can't really be undone so in many ways I'll have to run with what I've got. I hope the story doesn't diverge too far but in the end it is AU so it will evolve differently to the show. My apologies if it's not to your taste but this is the way I'm going with it._

_As always, thanks all reviewers, favers and alerters. I'm really appreciative of your input whether it's praise or criticism. How can I improve if my faults are never pointed out?_

_Thanks (especially to those of you brave enough to read the essay above!) Jace._

* * *

_**Commander**_

Dave faced school on Tuesday with a renewed interest. He actually paid attention in his history class for the first time in ages, his peanut butter kebabs seemed to turn out well in Home Ec and he completed his Spanish and English assignments with ease. Cheerio practice was also less gruelling than usual (although not by much) and at the end an equally sweaty Rachel dripped her way over.

Between pants, Rachel started a very one-sided conversation with Dave as they made their way to the school parking lot. "Although I honestly think that Coach Sylvester is trying to add my name to a rather lengthy list of musical artists who died way before their time, like Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, I must admit the workouts will enhance my already brilliant performances on the stage. Not that I need the extra exercise since I've practiced my healthy lifestyle of meditation, good eating choices and yoga since the tender age of three but I am thankful that it will not be a complete waste of time since I'm already more talented than those other girls anyway."

Dave rolled his eyes. Although he was less surprised at the girl's lack of modesty than he would have been a week ago, it still managed to irk him a little. Mostly it was because he wished he had that much confidence in himself. If he had, he would have been able to out himself instead of having it forced upon him. "Hmmm," Dave hummed noncommittally. "I actually like being a cheerio, even though the other guys refuse to change at the same time I do. The routines are fun."

Rachel snootily flicked her hair. "Please, the Glee dances are so much better than anything that old menopausal fossil can come up with." Since they had reached Rachel's car, they hopped in and drove off.

"So," began Rachel without taking her eyes off the road. "I'm going to start shouting at Kurt tomorrow in Glee and Mercedes had already arranged with a couple of the jocks to get herself slushied so she won't be there for the immediate fallout."

"She did what?" asked Dave in horror. Why anyone would voluntarily agree to be doused in that horrible liquid was beyond him.

Rachel shrugged. "Glee is something that is inexcusable to miss to Kurt. Very few things would rate higher in his books. A fashion emergency is one of them. At any rate, it's better than the hospitalisation option."

Dave looked at her, appalled that they had even considered that in the first place.

"Anyway," continued the diva as if she'd not said something horrific, "I've already talked to Mr Schu about how you're going to join the Glee club." Ignoring Dave's resigned sigh, Rachel ploughed on. "The audition will be next week on Friday. That will allow for some of our teachings to start taking effect."

With a suspicious look, Dave asked, "Are you sure you and Blaine will be able to teach me sing better?"

Rachel snorted. "Of course we can. I'll turn your voice from mediocre to amazing, perhaps not overnight but you WILL be stunning. Blaine will accelerate the process. You won't be stellar by the audition next week but your performance will be better than good. It's only a matter of time before your voice will be as well developed as ours."

Choosing to just accept her word despite his misgivings, Dave lapsed into a moody silence as Rachel nattered on. He was pleased he didn't need to contribute much to the conversation. Thankfully, they soon pulled up at the paint shop where Dave collected his precious Max who looked fantastic. He hadn't really noticed how bad the impromptu paint job had made the SUV look until it had been rectified.

Dave caught Rachel's wave from her Astra and returned it before setting the hands free on his phone. He started to make his way home as the phone picked up.

"Hello Dave," announced Blaine pleasantly through the phone.

"Hey B," returned Dave with a smirk.

"Don't call me that," thundered Blaine. "I've already told you I don't like..."

Dave smugly interrupted him, "Which is why I'm going to use it for the rest of your life." He could practically see the Warbler fidgeting with his tie through the phone. "Anyway, I'm on my way so I suppose I'll see you soon."

"Alright," came the refined reply. "We'll see you when you arrive, we'll be in a booth."

"Okay, bye." Dave ended the call and focussed on making it to the coffee shop without chipping his brand new paint job.

His arrival at the Lima Bean caused his worry to increase. It was Blaine who had made the suggestion as an improvement to their operation but the thought still concerned him. He had no idea how to react in this sort of situation.

The bell tinkled as he walked in and immediately saw Blaine, since he was waving at him like a lunatic. A guy in a carbon copy of his blazer was sitting with his back to him, dark brown hair the only indication as to who was wearing it. Dave placed his order with the barrister and quickly made his way to the two Dalton boys.

"Hi," he announced as he took his seat.

"Hello again," chirped Blaine before taking a sip of his chai latte.

Dave's eyes flicked to the other boy. He was thin and his face was rather angular. He looked as uncertain as Dave felt. Maybe Blaine had bullied him into this too.

The guy cleared his throat, licked his lips and took in a small breath. "Hi," he somehow smiled. "I'm Sebastian Smythe."

"David Karofsky," returned Dave who extended his hand which was tentatively accepted. They warily shook hands as Blaine quietly chortled to himself.

"So Dave, Sebastian has agreed to play his role in Operation: Dave's Incremental Corruption of Kurt's Status." The Warbler looked positively gleeful at the announcement which was quite the opposite of the two others.

"You gave your little scheme a name?" inquired Sebastian with a raised eyebrow.

Dave shrugged. "Zim was the one who thought of it."

Blaine added, "I'm still surprised he can actually think. He doesn't seem the type to do so."

Bristling at the slight on his childhood friend, Dave sucked in a huge breath to berate Blaine with but a rich tenor laugh caught his attention. It was quite a lovely sound.

When Sebastian had finished his laughter, the two confused looks aimed his way caused him to start all over again. Dave and Blaine shared a concerned look and Dave also wondered if the guy was mentally unstable.

"What's so funny?" asked a somewhat miffed Blaine. The generally good-natured guy hated being left out of the loop.

"This Sim person is really smart," decided Sebastian.

"It's Zim with a Z," corrected Dave, " and I don't think smart's a word I'd used in association with him."

"I agree," asserted Blaine.

Sebastian flashed them both a smile and started fishing into his blazer pocket. He extracted a gold pen and started to write something on a spare napkin.

Dave was considering googling nearby mental institutions when the napkin was thrust under his nose. It read Operation: Dave's Incremental Corruption of Kurt's Status but all of the capitals were circled. Underneath, Sebastian had noted, Operation: DICKS.

"That sly bastard," muttered Dave who tossed the napkin toward Blaine. Trust Zim to come up with that one. At least that explained why the chocolate coloured teen felt the need to give the plan a name in the first place.

The Warbler collapsed into giggles, which reignited the second Warbler's laughter. Even Dave allowed a couple of guffaws to escape.

Blaine eventually straightened his expression. "So, as you know, the original idea was for me to pretend to be your boyfriend," Blaine told Dave. "However, I thought that it would be a bit weird since we're friends and all and I'm sorry but I just don't think I could be convincing enough. You're not really my type and I had already discussed it with Kurt a while ago. He wouldn't believe it. That's when I thought of Sebastian."

The Warbler in question's lips thinned slightly but otherwise seemed unconcerned. "I'm between boyfriends at the moment, which Blaine knows and he approached me about being his friend's fake boyfriend. I'm more than happy to do it except I need to set some ground rules."

"Okay," blinked Dave. He was still sort of shocked at how Blaine had been able to muster up a love interest (no matter how bogus) overnight. Was he some sort of gay whisperer?

"One. No sex."

Dave was certain his eyes were about to fall out of their sockets. He'd assumed that would be the case since it was supposed to be a fake relationship. Emphasis on fake. What he didn't expect was for it to be spelled out to him.

"Two. Don't fall for me. I'm quite the actor and I apologise in advance if I do manage to inspire such feelings in you but I will not reciprocate them." The earnest look on Sebastian's face showed how convinced he was in his own abilities.

If Dave was astonished before, he was downright flabbergasted now.

"Three, kissing is allowed but not for extended periods of time. If you want a snog fest, find another fake boyfriend. I'm not here to improve your skills."

Dave was now flabbergasted and red. So very red.

"Four," continued Sebastian calmly.

"There's more?" asked a horrified Dave.

Sebastian's lips twitched, he was very amused but tried not to show it. "I reserve the right to come up with some sort of humiliating pet name for you at my discretion which you will accept."

Dave let his head fall onto the coffee table. "Fine," he agreed morosely without lifting his head.

"I'm actually looking forward to this. Blaine was right, you do turn amusing shades of crimson. I thought he was only joking." Sebastian finally let his smile show through.

Raising his head, Dave glared at Blaine who seemed unconcerned. He was too busy sipping from his teacup.

"Why do I get the feeling that I'm in a whole world of trouble?" asked Dave aloud. What he really wanted to know was if he just became someone else's bitch. The Warblers just smirked in response. A saucy tune pulled the boys attention to Sebastian who fumbled for his phone.

_I'm a dance floor lover, baby, there's no other who do it like I do it, yeah_

_From here on out I'll be your commander.  
No fear, no doubt, I'll provide the answer._

_Right now I command you to dance, I'll be your commander.  
Now I command you..._

The Kelly Rowland song was cut off as Sebastian quickly retreated from the table to answer it.

"So?" inquired Blaine, pulling Dave's attention from the retreating boy to himself.

"So what?" returned Dave.

Blaine rolled his eyes. "What do you think of Sebastian?"

"He seems alright," conceded Dave. In all honesty, he'd been petrified about meeting the guy. Having Blaine for a fake boyfriend would have been fine. He was fun, easygoing and rather attractive, despite his prominent eyebrows. Meeting up with a random who would soon be a fake boyfriend was an entirely different story. At least he didn't seem to be some sort of serial killer. "How did you get him to agree to this anyway?"

Blaine smirked. "A magician never reveals his secrets."

"You blackmailed him into it, didn't you?" asked Dave.

"Of course I didn't black..." began Blaine with an outraged look on his face.

"He told me I'd be annoying a diva and I'm sadistic enough to enjoy that sort of thing," cut in Sebastian as he rejoined the pair at the table.

Dave glanced from Sebastian to Blaine. "It looks like I'm not the only one who looks funny red."

To Blaine's disapproval, Sebastian agreed. "It's true, Blaine." The Warbler turned his attention back on to his new fake boyfriend. "So, baby, I'll start you off easy. Tomorrow. Food court dinner followed by a movie. Your choice. Not something too stupid though. I'll meet you there at six." Sebastian abruptly stood, gestured at Blaine who also rose and the pair made an extravagant exit, leave Dave to gawk in their wake. Yes, this little amendment to his plan was probably, no definitely, going to bite him in the ass.


	16. When You Got It, Flaunt It

_Heya._

_Here's chapter 16. Surprisingly, I managed to stick to my one chapter a week thingy. I worked an extra day this week so I didn't think it was going to happen. Thankfully it did, despite my current hangover. Hopefully it's not complete crap!  
_

_Thanks all reviewers, favers and alerters. You guys are fantastic_

_Cheers, Jace._

* * *

_**When You Got It, Flaunt It**_

In Dave's life, the next two weeks flew by faster than Superman could circle the planet. Despite this, five monumental moments occurred in that short space of time.

The first was his first official date. Sure he'd gone out with a couple of girls before but only because he felt obliged, not because he wanted to. This was the first time he was going to meet up with someone attractive, funny and totally male. It was exciting yet completely terrifying. He wondered how normal people felt since their dates weren't completely faked. Did it send them to the emergency ward or something?

The fake date itself went well. Just like he appeared in their earlier encounter, Sebastian was polite, funny and somewhat demanding. They talked and joked but the entire date thingy was at Sebastian's mercy. They'd only made it through half of the latest James Bond movie before the Warbler suddenly tapped Dave on the shoulder and marched out of the cinema. Apparently Sebastian could no longer tolerate James' womanising ways. Dave hadn't even noticed that, he only really wanted to watch it for the action scenes. Their other alternative was to watch a drama, documentary or a dumb cartoon. Ew.

Other than that, the rest of the evening was nice and they arranged to meet up again several times. At each new fake date, they upped the ante. The trip to the park on Saturday included a hand holding stroll (which was Sebastian firmly grabbing his hand and unwillingly dragging him along the path) followed by a picnic. The next Monday was a light dinner at a cafe where they played footsie (Dave was certain he'd bruised his fake date when he reflexively kicked him) and their latest date culminated in Sebastian grabbing Dave's head, planting a kiss on him, standing up, patting him on the head and waltzing out of Breadstix leaving a vaguely horrified Dave in his wake. Sebastian hadn't texted him the details of their next fake date but Dave was worried that the next one would involve sex on a table somewhere culminating in an extremely embarrassing arrest.

So right there was the second colossal event of the last two weeks. The first time someone he wasn't related to had willingly kissed him. Despite how contrived and awkward it was (not to mention brief) it had been quite nice. It had lacked the passion of his lip lock with Kurt all those weeks ago but that probably had a lot to do with how it had taken him by surprise and, well, Sebastian was rather intimidating. Still, Dave decided to count it anyway.

When he wasn't dating Sebastian (who absolutely refused to be called anything else) Dave spent a lot of time meeting up with Blaine, rehashing the gory details of the dates. The Warbler found them to be extremely amusing and after the fact, so did Dave. It wasn't nearly as embarrassing afterwards. It was during their latest coffee adventure that Dave experienced his third epic moment.

"And he just kissed you? Just like that?" asked Blaine in shock.

Dave laughed as he picked up his coffee. It was very rare to see the Warbler so ruffled, usually he was cooler than Alaska. Dave preferred the term glacial. He took a sip and responded, "Yeah, are you really surprised?"

Blaine blinked a couple of times as a frown settled on his face. "Well, not really but then again maybe. Basti's been acting a bit weird about this whole thing."

"Basti?" inquired Dave with a raised eyebrow.

Rolling his eyes in response, Blaine complained, "I can't be bothered to say Sebastian all the time. Really, if he doesn't like it he can get screwed, I mean, get over it."

Now Dave was really laughing, it was the first time he'd heard the Warbler say anything remotely cursish, even if screwed wasn't really that bad in the grand scheme of things. "OH MY GOD," yelled Dave causing the general public in the Lima Bean to stare in their direction. "YOU'RE AN ALIEN!" Blaine tried to shush Dave but the Cheerio ignored him. He leaned in to the reddening boy with an intense look. "So when did they switch you over? I know Blaine would never say such a plebeian word as screwed." Dave's eyes roamed all over the boy, as if he were looking for an extra limb or a third eye.

Blaine (who was now expertly resembling a tomato) took advantage of Dave's proximity and smacked him over the head. "Stop it," he giggled as Dave's eyes widened in shock and his jaw fell open.

"You hit me," Dave blinked. "Wow, you really were body snatched, weren't you?"

Suffice it to say, the rest of the afternoon was spent discussing aliens, science fiction and who would win in an Aliens vs. Predators match. They both agreed that aliens would win since Britney Spears would kick Jessica Simpson's ass in a fight.

The fourth immense event of Dave's current life was a text he received on Saturday after being dragged around the park by Sebastian but before meeting with Blaine and discussing how normal citizens walk dogs instead of people at parks. It was a rather short message but it was still groundbreaking material.

_Hey dude sorry 2 bail but im meetin Cedes 4 lunch. I dont wanna fuck this up i like her 2 much c u at skool_

Never had Zim cancelled plans with him for a girl before. That could have a lot to do with the fact that he's only dated two other girls and both of those relationships were extremely short lived. It hadn't occurred to Dave that they'd see less of each other when they both started dating. Still, it hurt a little that his best friend (despite his recent lapses) wasn't there for him.

Then again the main reason Dave wanted to discuss the date was to gross Zim out. The bastard was still far too pleased with himself and since the cat was out of the bag, he now referred to the mission as Operational Dicks. In fact, the boy would often make those stupid radioesque noises whenever he talked about it just to piss him off.

Like Tuesday at school for example. The pair were sitting in the library, eating their respective lunches.

Zim swallowed his mouthful of tuna sandwich and looked at his friend. "So, I've been doing my part in khuhhh Operational Dicks khuhhh. Not that it's difficult or anything."

Rolling his eyes, Dave just nodded.

"Yeah, we've been spending a lot of time together lately. Did you know she's got three whole boxes of gospel sheet music? I was like, Damn girl, that's a whole lot of praise there and she said that's 'cause I love the Lord and it's the best way I can show Him."

Dave once again just nodded along as he scarfed down his salad. He's been nodding a lot lately. It was Mercedes herself who decided that since Kurt had been recently ignoring her, perhaps she should do the same to him. A new boyfriend would certainly provide an adequate excuse should he become suspicious. Rachel, Blaine and Dave politely ignored how obvious it was that they both wanted to make it official and let them think they were being sneaky about it.

Unlike the previous four life-altering moments, the last one was the only one he saw coming. It was also the most terrifying. His dreaded audition for Glee club.

Keeping true to her word, Rachel had spent a large portion of the next Glee rehearsal since the inception of Operational Dicks ranting at Kurt for being "...the most insensitive jackass to ever roam the hellish exterior of Ohio..." and how he should be "...torn apart by a troupe of fat Elvis impersonators with green wigs and semi-sequined, last season miniskirts..." Of her rant, those parts were probably the nicest.

Also true to her word, that afternoon before his first date, Dave received his first singing lesson from his cousin. They spent two gruelling hours running scales, arpeggios and broken chords before she would let him stop. "It's just like Cheerio practice, Davey," Rachel soothed as Dave lay panting on the floor of her room beside her keyboard. "It takes a lot of work at first, even though I didn't because of course I've been in fit physical condition for years, but as you improve the easier it gets. Trust me, by Friday week, you'll be excellent."

Dave was now unsure who was more brutal (and psychotically unstable) Coach "The Bitch" Sylvester or Rachel "The Diva" Berry. He had a strong feeling it was his cousin. So every day or so, he spent hours going over notes with Rachel who although she was tough as guts and would accept nothing but excellence was still nice about it.

On the days she deemed necessary to rest his voice (which were the days he much preferred) they would watch a musical or two because Rachel deemed it an essential step in his musical education. She went on a long tirade about how in Glee, only two of them would probably end up with successful careers in performing. Kurt and herself. She wholeheartedly believes their singing is better than the others because they can sing more than just pop songs, they can do Broadway and opera numbers too. Thus, if Dave was to reach somewhere near her already phenomenal standard, he'd have to learn to sing in those genres too.

So Dave had now seen Grease, Guys and Dolls, Cats, South Pacific, The Producers, Annie, Les Misérables, Oliver and The Phantom of the Opera. He was rather disturbed that he enjoyed them all. Well, he didn't really like Cats because Rachel kept hitting him since he would occasionally nod off. His favourites were Grease and The Producers, mainly because he found them the funniest.

Rachel talked to Dave when they were at Cheerio practice on Thursday, the day before his Glee audition. "So," she began as Dave held her in the air above his head, "I've selected your audition piece for tomorrow."

Dave would have groaned aloud but Coach Sylvester would have heard it, swooped over to them and doubled the length of time he'd have to hold her aloft. That was so not happening, so he let Rachel do what she's good at. Having a conversation by herself.

"Our assignment this week is another one of those gender swapping ones. You know, where the boys sing songs by girls and the girls sing boy songs. So I thought it would be best if you auditioned with a song of that style. That way you'll already fit in with the club whether they like it or not. There's nothing to worry about. Of course, they'll like it. I've been training you after all."

Dave let her words wash over him. She wanted him to sing a song a girl would sing? Seriously? Wait, it's Rachel. Of course she's serious. Unfortunately, he's never had the heart to say no to her so he resigned himself to the fact that this was probably going to be one of the worst experiences of his life.

So that's how he got here. To moment number five. Standing in the middle of the choir room, staring blankly at the sea of faces in front of him. He'd heard of having your life flash before your eyes but he'd never really experienced it like that before. A small glint caught his attention causing him to focus on the phone in Mercedes' hands. She must be recording him for Zim to watch later. After a quick glance at Rachel (who nodded encouragingly at him) he smiled at Brad. As the pianist fluttered his fingers over the notes, Dave took in a breath and began to sing.

_When you got it, flaunt it, step right up and strut your stuff  
People tell you modesty's a virtue but in the theatre modesty can hurt you_

There were audible gasps and whispered conversations from the gleeks. Good or bad? Dave didn't know and he didn't let it affect him. Rachel had spent far too long trying to distract him while he was practising for a small thing like that to put him off his notes.

_When you got it, flaunt it, show your assets, let them know you're proud  
Your goodies you must push, stick out your chest, shake your tush  
When you got it, shout it out loud._

Dave heard Mercedes' muted laughter when he stuck his chest out and shook his ass in time with the words and for some reason it made him feel like maybe he wasn't too bad at this.

Rachel had told him don't try to use a hideous Swedish accent since he wasn't a Swedish girl, just sing it. So he did.

_When I was just a little girl in Sweden, my thoughtful mother gave me this advice  
If nature blesses you from top to bottom, show that top to bottom, don't think twice_

At this point, Dave had lost himself to the song and the room had disappeared. So he didn't think twice and stripped his shirt off to reveal his rather recent abs. Cheerio practice had worked wonders for him. Just like in The Producers, he started to belt out the end of the song.

_Don't think twice!_

_When you got it, share it, let the public feast upon your charms  
People say that being prim is proper but every showgirl knows that prim will stop her  
If you got it, give it, don't be selfish, give it all away_

_Don't be shy, be bold and cute, show the boys your birthday suit  
When you got it, if you got it, once you got it, shout out hooray!_

Most of the gleeks were on their feet applauding and cheering. Naturally, Rachel's ovation was exceptionally loud. Mr Schu came up to Dave and casually draped an arm over his shoulder. In his usual benign way he announced, "Welcome to New Directions," to more cheers from the gleeks. Dave tried not to notice the statuesque pose of a shocked Kurt Hummel but years of spotting his figure from afar made that impossible. The look of shock on his face was worth the effort. Hopefully this would be one victory of many in their little war.


	17. Knock On Superstition

_Heya._

_Sorry about last week. It didn't happen. I was just grabbing some lunch when I was walking the one block back to my place, a few guys attacked me. I got away but the urge to do anything was killed. At least I'm alright, just got some bruises and a splitting headache but it could have been so much worse._

_In regards to the songs, I honestly don't know how well they would actually mash-up together in real life. I should, being a music teacher and all but since the majority of you are all probably just skimming the lyrics (I usually do in songfics... Oh well!) I don't think it matters too much._

_Thanks all reviewers, favers and alerters. You're all brilliant._

_Ta, Jace._

* * *

_**Knock On Superstition**_

"What do you mean, you've never heard of a mash-up before?" asked a scandalised Rachel as she stared in horror at Zim and Dave who were unconcernedly sitting on Azimio's lounge.

"Was that a..." started Zim before he was talked over by a now disgruntled Rachel.

"Yes Jordan, it was a rhetorical question." She sent the chocolate boy a withering glare. She blinked, flicked her hair and suddenly her entire demeanour had changed. Gone was Cranky Rachel and Teacher Rachel stood in her place. Even though he'd seen the abrupt transformations she could undergo a few times now, Dave was still a little disorientated whenever she did that hair flicky thing. With a smile she began, "A mash up is where two songs are literally mashed together to make a combination, like a PB&J sandwich. Two flavours on their own, a new one combined."

"At Dalton," added Blaine from the arm of the couch where he was elegantly perched, "most of our songs are mash-ups. It's kind of our specialty."

"Yeah," agreed Sebastian who had taken it upon himself to sit on Dave's lap. Dave was unsure how he felt about that. The weight was comfortable enough but at the same time, it was just weird.

"Same goes for us," Mercedes added. She was on the floor, leaning against Zim's legs as she watched Rachel nodding along and pacing in front of them.

Dave frowned. "I still don't get it. Do you mix all the words around to make new sentences or do you use the words from one song to the tune of another or what? Why not just sing the songs normally?"

Rachel took a deep breath but from her plentiful experience with her hissy fits, Mercedes intervened. "Oh hell no," she announced from the floor. She started elbowing Zim who took the hint and helped her to her feet. She thanked him with a glorious smile before moving to stand next to Rachel. She tilted her head at the two jocks. "You know Rachel, we, I mean you, could explain this until you're blue in the face and they still wouldn't get it. I think a practical demonstration is in order."

A matching smile bloomed over Rachel's face. "I totally agree. Would you like to help out boys?" she politely asked the Warblers.

"Of course," Blaine answered. He and Sebastian joined the ladies in front of the couch. "So what are we mashing-up?" asked Blaine politely.

Mercedes glanced at him with disapproval. "Just wing it, white boy."

Blaine looked concerned but Sebastian just smirked. "The Warblers have never failed at a mash-up before and we'll die before being the first to tarnish our extremely outstanding reputation."

"Knock on wood," added Blaine as he resolutely thumped a nearby table with his knuckles.

Mercedes began to smirk, "Excellent suggestion, Mr Anderson." She turned to face the boys who were still on the couch. Her eyes stayed locked with Zim's and she started to belt out a tune.

_I don't want to lose you, this good thing that I got  
'Cause if I do I will surely, surely lose a lot  
'Cause your love is better than any love I know_

_It's like thunder and lightning, the way you love me is frightening  
You better knock, knock, knock on wood, baby, ooh, baby, ooh_

With a small look at the boys, all that needed to be said was said and Sebastian stepped into the centre of the room. With a uncommon but nice genuine smile, he gazed at Dave with some seriously smouldering eyes.

_Very superstitious, writing's on the wall, very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall  
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass, seven years of bad luck, the good things' in your past_

_When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer  
Superstition ain't the way_

Mercedes and Sebastian moved together and were immediately flanked by Rachel and Blaine, the girls on one side and the boys on the other. Blaine took over Sebastian's lyrics and Rachel did the same with Mercedes'. The pair weaved the two separate songs into one.

_Very superstitious,_ started Blaine. _(I'm not superstitious) _answered Rachel. They kept going in that way for the entwined verses.  
_Wash your face and hands (about you)  
Rid me of the problem (But I can't take no chance)  
Do all that you can_

_Keep me in a daydream (You got me spinnin')  
Keep me goin' strong (Baby)  
You don't wanna save me (You know I'm in a trance)  
Sad is my song_

Blaine dropped out and both girls blasted out the next part.

_It's like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightenin'  
You better knock, knock, knock on wood, baby, ooh, baby, ooh_

The boys pitched in overlapping on the word you.

_You believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer  
Superstition ain't the way_

Mercedes continued wailing out oohs while the other three backed her.

_Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood  
Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood  
Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood  
Think I better knock, knock, knock on wood_

The quartet bowed at the end to enthusiastic applause from three enraptured audience members. Dave catcalled and Zim beamed at his girlfriend but the attention of everyone was brought to the doorway.

"My word, I always knew you had a great set of pipes, girl from church on Sundays but damn, that was incredible," gushed the short yet sturdy Stella Azimio as she leaned casually on the doorframe. "I bet you could call the angels from the Heavens themselves," she remarked as she moved behind the couch. Without warning, she smacked her son playfully over the head. "It's about time you brought some nice people over for a change, fat ass."

Zim started sputtering at his mother as Dave snickered. Unfortunately this caught her attention and he shrunk back from her raised eyebrow. Sometimes the woman had whacked him too and he didn't want an encore performance of Zim's smack on his head.

Miss A just folded her arms and glanced between the two boys on the couch before heaving a mammoth sigh. "Did Harvey teach you nothing, boy?" she asked her son. Zim stared blankly back at his mother before looking to Dave who shrugged in response. Just as Stella was turning her intense gaze on Dave, someone clearing their throat grabbed her attention.

Naturally, it was Blaine. "I'm sorry, Miss Azimio. We've not been introduced. I'm Blaine Anderson, a friend of David's." He genteelly extended his well-manicured hand to the short woman who smiled at the boy.

"A pleasure, Mr Anderson," she gushed. "It's lovely to see that some young people are still taught polite manners."

Now that Zim knew what his mother had been hinting at, he introduced the others. Dave was scooped up in a hug when Miss A found out that Sebastian was his boyfriend. She near fainted when Mercedes pointed out that she was Zim's girlfriend. That was how Mercedes found herself with an armful of woman.

"Oh, I always hoped he'd find a nice, sweet girl to date instead of those, others," another harsh glare was sent to her son. Dave silently agreed. Ruth and Helen (his previous girlfriends) were, to put it bluntly, sluts. He was sure they were just trying to get enough experience for when they started working at Hooters. When Miss A extracted herself from Mercedes' grip, she looked around the room. "So, what's the occasion?"

"Dave got accepted into Glee club this afternoon, Mum," answered Zim quickly. Dave assumed he was trying to avoid aggravating his mother, a wise choice.

Stella launched herself at Dave who shrunk back as far as he could into the couch since he was trapped there. "Oh, that's wonderful news Davey. I've been trying to get Jordan to join for ages..."

"MUM!" interrupted a scandalised Zim.

Unfortunately for the boy, his mother continued. "...but he won't budge. If Harvey were here, God rest his..."

"MUM," interrupted Zim again, this time angrily. "You're not going to guilt me into Glee club with my own dead father. If I join Glee it'll be because I want to, not because you think I should."

There was a deafening silence where the others in the room felt supremely uncomfortable.

Stella's voice filled the room but the tone was much gentler than before. "You, you're right, Jordy. Do, d-do I do that a lot?" she asked with a quaver in her voice.

Zim looked at his only remaining parent. "You do, Mum..."

Miss A quietly sniffled. Dave shifted uncomfortably on the couch. He'd spent a lot of time listening to Zim bitch about his mother and her numerous _if Harvey were still alive_ comments. Of all the times to have it out, now was probably one of the worst he could have chosen.

"...but that's okay. It just means that you're looking out for me and my big black ass." Without warning, Zim was crash tackled by his mother and Dave was once again reminded where Zim's aptitude for football came from.

Miss A sobbed on her son for a few moments before she remembered that there were guests in her house. Patting her son on the cheek, she hopped back off the couch and wiped her tears away. "Sorry, it's been a long day at work and I'm a little, er, I'm off to make some coffee, would anyone like some?" Sebastian took her up on her offer and the woman all but sprinted from the room.

"Well, that was..." began Mercedes who faded out to nothingness.

Rachel finished the sentence off for her, "...extremely awkward."

There was another long and uncomfortable silence which was only interrupted when Stella re-entered the room, handed Sebastian his coffee and left it again as soon as possible. The guests in the Azimio residence all politely ignored the tear tracks on the mother's face.

The powerful and unexpected voice of Whitney Houston startled the group as a whole but Blaine was so surprised he leapt into the arms of the closest person, who happened to be Rachel. She staggered under his weight and quickly placed him back on the ground amid gales of laughter from the other boys. Mercedes was too busy trying to extract her phone from her purse to notice. She put on her bitch face which quickly quelled the laughter and she connected the call.

"Hey Kurt baby," announced Mercedes, knowing the others would no doubt want to listen in. She was still torn over the subject. Kurt's her friend but he hasn't really been himself for a while now. His sarcasm was getting out of hand and a few things he'd said to her lately had hurt. Although she knew he didn't really mean to cause her harm, it still did. He'd recently (and unknowingly) belittled her weight, talent and even how diva she was. He was doing a fine job of being and A grade jackass so she was feeling little remorse about it all.

There was a pause as she listened to Kurt's greeting. "Yeah, I know what you mean." Another pause. "Look, Kurt, I can't really talk too much right now, I'm on a date."

Everyone in the room could hear the high pitched squeal through the phone. "Yeah, this our third date. I didn't know Jordan was such a sweet guy. You know, Azimio."

Once again everyone could hear Kurt through the phone except this time he was obviously angry. "Well, that's to bad, hotness. I like him. He's nice to me and I'm sorry if you can't handle that."

There was a long pause and Dave was certain Kurt was giving Mercedes one of his patent rants with words he totally wouldn't understand the meaning of. "Don't say that, Kurt! He's kind, gentle and cute. If you're going to complain about him for the rest of the call, don't bother. We were in the middle of watching a movie which I made him pause so I could talk to you and all that's doing is making me angry. You're lucky he went to make some more popcorn or he probably would've heard everything you said."

Mercedes looked at Zim's expression as she listened to Kurt's reply. It was looking a little murderous but he didn't actually hear what the boy had said about him, which was probably a good thing. Mercedes raised her eyebrows and a mischievous smile crept onto her face. "I don't know if I can. We're supposed to be at the mall tomorrow for a lunch date."

Dave noticed Zim shocked look and realised this was also news to him too. "Why don't you join us. See him away from school. Meet the wonderful guy that I like."

The smirk on Mercedes' face deepened. "Of course Karofsky's not going to be there. As if I would be caught having lunch with that bully. Oh, Zim's back."

Mercedes waved frantically at her boy. Zim looked confused for a second before he caught on to her meaning. "I got the popcorn, girl. You still on the phone? I wanna watch the rest of the movie." He pouted at her and she gave him a thumbs up in return as she listened to Kurt again.

"Sweeny Todd. Of course I could never date someone who's uneducated and he's enjoying it so far. I gotta jet but we'll see you tomorrow right?" Mercedes wrapped up the conversation. "Bye love." She made a couple of kissing noises and hung up. She heaved a large sigh of relief. It felt weird to be lying to her friend but at the same time, she felt like she was a super spy or something and it was a bit of a rush.

Zim looked at his girlfriend. "So I suppose we're going to lunch tomorrow?"

Mercedes nodded. "Yes. You have nothing in common so it'll probably be awkward."

"Great," said Zim with little enthusiasm.

"Well, there's Sweeny Todd, I suppose," Mercedes noted.

Frowning, Zim looked confused. "But I've never seen it." He saw Mercedes smirk again. "You planned this, didn't you."

"You'll never be able to prove it."

"I don't even own it, and neither does my mother," Zim complained.

Rachel squealed. "I own it!"

Smirking, Dave shook his head. "Of course you do."

"You know what this means, right?" Rachel asked. No one answered her. "SLEEPOVER AT MY HOUSE! Attendance is mandatory. It starts right now!"

"But I didn't bring any pyjamas!" gasped Blaine. Everyone stared at him.

Sebastian chuckled. "Blaine, your gay is showing."

The Warbler in question blushed as the six madly dashed around the room, preparing to make the pilgrimage from Zim's house to Rachel's. Despite the spate of bustling activity, Dave felt a little concerned. He had the feeling that tomorrow was going to be an eventful day.


	18. Wait

_Hi there._

_Not really got anything to say this time, except apologies for the lateness. My bad._

_As always, I love every reviewer, faver and alerter. I'd marry you all if polygamy wasn't, well, icky._

_Enjoy (I hope!)_

_Jace._

* * *

_**Wait**_

Blaine was saved from the discomfort of sleeping without pyjamas by Zim, who generously leant the boy a shirt and pants from his closet before they left. Dave swung by his house on the way to Rachel's for a change of clothes and to let his parents know he would be spending the rest of the night at the Berry residence.

"Holy shit!" squeaked Dave after he bid his mother goodnight. Next to the front door stood Sebastian in an old Columbus Blue Jackets shirt and a somewhat loud pair of light blue swimming trunks. He'd clearly raided Dave's closet while he was talking to his parents and seeing the boy wearing his clothes caused something to flip in his stomach.

Sebastian smirked at his fake boyfriend. "Are you ready to go or are you going to keep staring at me? Of course, I can completely understand why you'd be frozen by my astonishingly brilliant body..."

Dave cut him off with, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." His words weren't enough to cover his blatant gawking or the light pink blush that blossomed over his cheeks. They made a hasty escape since neither wanted Rachel to follow through on some of her colourful threats for those who were late for the start of the movie.

The sleepover itself was great fun. Everyone heartily enjoyed Sweeney Todd. Even Zim. Of course it was a little hard to focus on the movie sometimes when Rachel, Blaine, Mercedes and Sebastian would occasionally sing along when they couldn't help themselves. For the most part, however, they were very well behaved.

While the credits were rolling, it was Mercedes who gathered everyone's attention. "Alright everybody, I think it's time we discussed the plan..."

"You mean khuhhh Operational Dicks khuhhh?" supplied Zim unhelpfully, earning a smirk from everyone except Dave and Mercedes. Dave due to his embarrassment and Mercedes because he interrupted her. She smacked her boyfriend behind the head and glared harshly at him.

"Don't you dare interrupt me again, boy," her eyes flashed dangerously and Zim gulped. "As I was saying, the plan. Here's what I've got so far. Obviously, Jordy will be with me and Kurt in the food court." She turned to face her boyfriend with a smile. "You have two jobs to do, okay?"

"Sure thing, Baby," agreed Zim automatically. He puffed out his chest a little with a smile of pride, happy to be helping out his friend and doing whatever his new girlfriend wanted. "So, what do you want me to do?"

Mercedes flashed him another smile. "Firstly, well, you have to get Kurt to like you. Especially if you wanna still be dating me in more than a months time. Despite his recent snarkyness..."

"Recent?" interjected Dave with a frown.

"...Kurt's still my friend," finished Mercedes, with only a passing glance at Dave. With her eyes back on her boyfriend, she outlined the second job she needed Zim to do. "As for the other thing, if we're nearing the end of our lunch date and Kurt hasn't noticed the lovebirds, I want you to point them out. There's no point in setting this up if he doesn't spot them."

Zim agreed gleefully, hoping that he would get the chance to point out Dave. Hummel's expression would be priceless.

Shifting her focus, Mercedes turned to face Dave and Sebastian. "Now, Basti..."

"Sebastian," the boy in question automatically corrected her.

Mercedes ignored him and continued, "... and Dave will need to arrive before us so that Kurt won't see them walking in, he'd probably make some lame excuses to avoid our date and would miss the chance to see how well the pair of you get on. So Dave, your task is to keep your cool. Try to enjoy yourself, the more you do that, the more realistic your fake date will look. He needs to believe it. If Kurt sees the two of you having a good time, at the very least, it will be a shock to his system to see Dave acting, well, normal and happy." She gave Dave a sympathetic look since she now knew he wasn't as frightening as he appeared at school before his outing."

"Alright, I'll try my best." Dave agreed. He looked at his fake boyfriend with a smile. "I'm sure Basti..."

"Sebastian," corrected the Warbler again.

"...will take good care of me." His smile broadened at the interjection.

Mercedes beamed at Dave, she was sometimes still surprised that the boy could be nice since she'd never seen him be anything but cruel for the last couple of years. She glanced at his fake boyfriend with a smirk. "Basti,..."

"Sebastian."

"...all you need to do is be your charming self. You need to make sure Dave doesn't get uncomfortable on your date. If Kurt sees that Dave's making an idiot of himself, he'll only feel better about it. We can't let that happen."

The thin teen flashed his patent smirk at his fake boyfriend. "I'll do everything in my power to make this a wonderful and memorable experience for you, Muffincake," he announced. Muffincake was the hideous nickname he'd chosen for Dave as one of the conditions of his agreeing to be his fake boyfriend. Dave flushed at the comment causing Sebastian's smirk to widen.

"So what do Rachel and I get to do?" inquired Blaine politely, to take the focus off a clearly embarrassed Dave.

"Absolutely nothing. You won't be going on this particular mission." Mercedes held a hand up when Rachel was about to protest. "If we all go, it'll seem more like an ambush. Kurt will be more likely to work out the date's been staged if we're all there. Patience." The chocolate coloured woman bravely withstood their pouts and did not cave.

Dave frowned. "So when do Basti..."

"Sebastian," came the short interjection. It was a little louder than his last few attempts.

"...and I come over to your table, 'Cedes?"

Mercedes looked over at Dave. "You don't. You'll only arouse suspicion."

"But isn't the whole purpose of this to show Kurt how nice I can be?" Dave's anger was starting to rise. Why couldn't things just work out for him?

Placing a placating hand on his shoulder, Rachel got his attention. "This isn't going to happen overnight, Dave. He's got to get used to the idea first. You can't outshine him in just a week. These things take time. If you want to get Kurt on your side, he has to decide it for himself. You can't just force him."

There was a thoughtful silence as the group considered the plan and how it was more of a long-term strategy. The silence was broken as Rachel started to giggle. Everyone else looked at her. "You're a lot like Sweeney Todd. Disillusioned with the world, somewhat violent and in a rush to get what you want. You need to take Mrs Lovett's advice." She began to sing part of one of the songs from the musical.

_Slow, love, slow. Time's so fast.  
Now goes quickly, see, now it's past!  
Soon will come. Soon will last.  
Wait._

_Don't you know, silly man,  
Half the fun is to plan the plan?  
All good things come to those who can,  
Wait._

Dave didn't particularly want to wait but he could see her point. Grudgingly agreeing, he tried to keep his (apparently) somewhat violent thoughts to himself and calmed down. They talked a little more about Operational Dicks but were soon distracted by Zim, who had ejected Sweeney Todd from the DVD player. He put something in and closed it up.

"That's not one of my movies," frowned Rachel as she stared at the menu as it popped up.

Jordy snorted. "That's because it's not." He looked at his girlfriend. "After the little stunt you pulled to get me to watch a musical, I thought it would be fair for you to watch one of my movies. So I brought it along. Get ready to watch X-men: First Class!"

Her face scrunched up with distaste, Mercedes opened her mouth to argue with him but didn't. With an expansive sigh, she plonked herself down on the couch next to Zim. He flashed her a radiant smile and she gave a small one in return. Rachel nicked off to make some more popcorn and the others made themselves comfortable, ready for some mindless entertainment.

At the conclusion of the movie, both Rachel and Mercedes decided they enjoyed it. They gossiped about how much the mutants were outcasts like they were in glee. Which evolved into a discussion about what superpower they would want if they were a mutant.

"I would totally want to be able to control the weather," noted Mercedes. "That way when I get my diva on, I could put on a real show and zap whoever's pissing me off." She smirked as she thought about how much fun that would be.

Rachel looked a little horrified at her. She shook her head and her expression cleared. "Well, I would like to produce force fields. That way I would never suffer through the icy horror of a slushy facial ever again." She pointedly ignored Zim guiltily shifting in his seat and continued without pause. "Also, when I'm a famous Broadway headliner I wouldn't have to worry about the showers of roses I'm bound to receive scratching my beautiful face."

Mercedes rolled her eyes. "What about you, Zimmo?"

The boy in question thought for a moment before answering. "Laser beams."

"Why?" asked his girlfriend.

"Because it's cool," he shrugged.

"Well, I think I would like telekinesis," contributed Blaine. "Nothing would ever be out of reach. I could make a latte from the couch."

"I'd like to shape shift. Oh the fantasies I could fulfil. I could be the most well paid gigolo on the planet." Everyone stared at Sebastian in horror as he smirked, no doubt imagining something highly inappropriate. Blaine coughed, bringing him back to the present and the boy actually blushed. "Er, um, what about you, Muffincake?" he asked Dave in an attempt to take everyone's eyes off him. He looked up from Dave's lap to see him sleeping. "When did that happen?" he thought out loud.

Rachel jumped up from her ergonomically designed beanbag and it was clear she was shaking with excitement. She dashed to her room and returned with a USB. Plugging it into the television, she selected a movie file and smirked at everyone. "This is a movie you have to see. Don't worry, it's not too long but, well, you'll understand." She started the movie and sat back down to enjoy.

The sound of his friend's loud laughter brought Dave back to consciousness. Through his friends hilarity he could just make out a familiar song. In a moment, his eyes widened and confirmed what he already knew. There he was in the middle of the screen, mid-song, shaking his drunken ass at the camera. Damn Rachel Berry to the dark depths of hell! It was his Man! I feel like a woman! rendition at his mother's birthday party. She lied to him. She promised she'd never show a soul. Dave sighed. There was no use trying to stop the movie now. They'd seen most of it already anyway.

Dave took the comments with good grace and even earned himself a small kiss on the cheek from Sebastian who thought it was an adorable attempt at drunken serenading. He flushed red once again in response. Why the hell did he have to do that every time? Seriously?

After a bit more conversation, Rachel finally put her foot down and sent everyone to bed since they did have a plan to enact in about five hours. She flounced off to her bedroom with Mercedes since her bed was definitely large enough for two. Zim stretched out on the couch with one of Rachel's many blankets. Sebastian nestled further into Dave's lap on the recliner under a hideous pink blanket with a black cat stitched onto it.

Settling onto the spare mattress on the floor, Blaine looked up toward Zim. "Are you sure you're comfortable sleeping in a room with three gay boys?" he asked courteously.

Zim snorted. "Of course, I've slept over Dave's house many times and he's never jumped me. I also doubt the two of you would do that. What's there to worry about?"

"Oh, but we could do each other. We could get so randy, we might wake you up." wafted Sebastian's voice from the recliner. Zim just chuckled in response, not taking him seriously. The Warbler peered up at Dave and frowned. The guy was already asleep again. His best material of night was now wasted.

Blaine laughed from the floor at Sebastian's expression. "Don't worry Basti, there may be other nights you can indulge your exhibitionist tendencies."

Sebastian's frown became a pout. "It's Sebastian," he muttered to himself before closing his eyes. He needed to sleep so he could be at his charming best tomorrow (well, today) for Muffincake. That way he could show him in a good light so at least one of them might get their happily ever after.


End file.
